Man made the first giant leap in the Fertile Crescent
with the Neolithic agricultural revolution

Neolithic baker

There is, of course, a view that this second revolution marked a return to barbarism. But let us stick to generally accepted ideas for the time being. Even common sense says that the key was the first step; when hunters and gatherers became pastoralists and farmers. The development most probably was brought about by women: gathering fruit was their responsibility together with children, while men hunted. Therefore, agriculture, especially farming, the main aspect of the rural economy emerging then, was an innovation brought forth by women.(a)

(a) That sexual division of labour explains numerous differences in mentality between sexes that still characterize them, causing misunderstandings in their relationships.

As we know, a farmer is much more bound to the land than a hunter-gatherer or a pastoralist. Thus, the transition to farming led to the creation of permanent settlements that gradually grew: they became villages, some of them towns, or even cities. The latter – as the Hellenic and Latin words polis (πόλις) and civitas make clear – brought forth both politics and civilization. Man began his gradual transformation into what Aristotle would much later call a “political animal”, identifying a new distinctive feature of Homo sapiens vis-à-vis the other animal species.

The transition to farming led to the creation of settlements
that gradually grew: they became villages, towns, cities.
The latter brought forth both politics and civilization.

Cities require central authority and hierarchy, imposing monuments, division of labour and specialization. They necessitate the arts and crafts, commerce, architecture, pottery, metallurgy… The Mediterranean periplus began tentatively at that time, in parallel with the caravan routes along land roads that nevertheless remained dangerous. Consequently, so long as man familiarized himself with the sea, he’d rather sail than travel on land. It sounds a bit like an oxymoron that the liquid element is far more “solid” and safe, but that’s how it is.

Of course, the exchange of commercial goods is accompanied with the exchange of ideas, aesthetic patterns, intellectual “goods”, innovations. In this manner the new way of life spread rapidly inside and outside the Mediterranean basin, reaching eastwards as far as the Indian subcontinent and beyond: the Indo-Mediterranean contacts date back to at least the third millennium BCE.

The exchange of commercial goods is accompanied with the exchange of ideas, aesthetic patterns, intellectual “goods”, innovations.

The conditions were already ripe for the next colossal step: writing. Even though the reasons for this great innovation were initially bureaucratic (administrative record keeping, transfer of orders and messages), the invention and subsequent simplification of writing with the alphabet was indispensable as a condition for the systematic transfer of knowledge from one generation to the other and, of course, for the cultivation of literature and the arts – fields where the Greeks excelled.

Anyway, one needs to turn his back to the temptation of nationalist simplifications, although the ancient Hellenes have been a universal point of reference. The “Eastern threat” was there even then: it was the Persians. But Oriental knowledge was there, as well: any self-respecting philosopher wishing to be wise would go there for his “PhD”! It was the Orient where innumerable artifacts and ideas originated, along with the necessary know-how. Everything imported and adopted, however, had to be adapted according to the local needs and tastes; and some went by the wayside…

Alexander

There are several historical oxymora in this era. One of them concerns the differences between the Aegean and the Orient in their political structures. The decentralized Greek city-states flourishing in the Iron Age, i.e. in classical times, had few Oriental equivalents: the Sumerian and the Phoenician cities. On the contrary, the prevailing state entities in the East were centralized empires of both the Bronze and Iron Ages. Despite all that, the mighty Achaemenid Empire was repeatedly defeated and humiliated by the ‘Amphictyony’ of the Hellenes – except the… Thebans and several other Quislings of the time (μηδίσαντες [medísantes], those who surrendered to the Persians-Medes and fought on their side).(b)

We can very well imagine
how completely indifferent the Spartans would have been
to this inscription. “Except the Lacedaemonians”—naturally. The Spartans
weren’t to be led and ordered around
like precious servants. Besides,
a pan-Hellenic expedition without
a Spartan king in command
was not to be taken very seriously.
Of course, then, “except the Lacedaemonians.”

That’s certainly one point of view. Quite understandable.

Constantine Cavafy,
by Panaiotes Daphiotis

So, “except the Lacedaemonians” at Granicus,
then at Issus, then in the decisive battle
where the terrible army
the Persians mustered at Arbela was wiped out:
it set out for victory from Arbela, and was wiped out.

And from this marvelous pan-Hellenic expedition,
triumphant, brilliant in every way,
celebrated on all sides, glorified
as no other has ever been glorified,
incomparable, we emerged:
the great new Hellenic world.

We the Alexandrians, the Antiochians,
the Seleucians, and the countless
other Greeks of Egypt and Syria,
and those in Media, and Persia, and all the rest:
with our far-flung supremacy,
our flexible policy of judicious integration,
and our Common Greek Language
which we carried as far as Bactria, as far as the Indians.

Talk about Lacedaemonians after that!…

Alexander’s empire

So much for the phrase “except the…”, that’s always been very “trendy” in Hellas. As for the “medisantes” (derived from the Medes, Media, to which Cavafy also referred), they have indeed flooded the country! Among others, they include even the man who triumphed in the naval battle of Salamis: Themistocles. His successors have so much ballooned that a list with their names is almost impossible. They are well-known and visible, nevertheless: they mostly crowd the corridors and salons of the ruling elite…
But why “In the Year 200 B.C.”? Why Cavafy alludes in his title to a later date? We ignore the poet’s intention… That year, however, the 2nd Macedonian war broke out ending three years later with Rome’s victory over Macedon. It was the beginning of the end because since then Greece fell under full Roman control.

“The neck of the Greek the yoke will not abide,” one could very well say. OK, but this was a result of objective conditions. It was not so much that the Hellenes did not want, but rather did not need an imperial administration. What for them was an extraordinary situation that required collective and comprehensive effort, for the Easterners was an everyday struggle with an opponent much more powerful than the mightiest empire: Nature itself…

It was not so much that the Hellenes did not want,
but rather did not need an imperial administration…

Babylonian map of canals and irrigation systems West of the Euphrates (1684-1647 BCE)

Expanding his presence in an environment of rather great contrasts, which would be barren without the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, with the waters in abundance but also with floods and cataclysms lurking, the Easterner realized the need for coordination of the efforts of all communities. Next to deserts, symbolizing the constantly present absolute evil, these rivers were a blessing from heaven but had unpredictable behaviour: therefore, they should be tamed. Major public works, especially for irrigation, were a prerequisite for human survival; commerce, as well, for the supply of these communities with absolutely necessary raw materials, and also luxury goods.

No need to say these two networks, irrigation and (state-controlled) trade, necessitated centralized power that should inspire fear. Those in power obviously needed law-enforcement agencies: the army and clergy. They needed imposing, majestic palaces, monuments, temples. It is what Karl Marx called the “Asiatic mode of production” and is the key to understanding Oriental despotism. A by-product is the relative – or ostensible, as others say – stagnation and immobility that has characterized these societies for millennia until now.

Irrigation and trade necessitated centralized power that should inspire fear. Therefore, it needed law-enforcement agencies: the army and clergy.
It was absolutely impossible for democracy to grow on Babylonian soil.

Babylon

Let us not forget, however, that these societies cultivated astronomy, mathematics, geometry – for the same reasons they invented writing; societies that created wonders like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – although hanging by a thread: the infrastructure that had made them great was also their Achilles’ heel. You can realize that with just a look at the ruins of Babylon conquered and pillaged by time.(c) It was absolutely impossible for democracy to grow on Babylonian soil.

(c) When this text was written, Babylon had not been conquered also by the Americans. Yet the conquerors were conquered in turn, as well! But the price was heavy: disregarding the consequences, the US forces built a military base on Babylonian ruins. Dr. John Curtis of the British Museum described how the archaeological site was in some parts levelled to create a landing area for helicopters and parking lots for heavy vehicles. The occupation forces, he wrote,

One of the dragons from the Ishtar gate

“caused substantial damage to the IshtarGate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity […] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists […] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall.”

It is well known that American soldiers, as well as other personnel from the “Coalition of the willing” invaders of Iraq (e.g. Poles, who were also stationed in Babylon), looted many antiquities, which found their way to private collections.

The Oriental despots, satraps and tyrants were “necessary evils”. And, as there is always a match between worldly and heavenly powers (the concept of monarchies held “by the Grace of God” is in fact quite ancient), equally almighty and omnipotent, terrible and frightful, have been the Oriental gods; especially since they’ve been left alone with no competition at all, after all their antagonists had been “treated accordingly” by the clergy of the new monotheistic religions.(d)

The Oriental despots, satraps and tyrants were “necessary evils”. Equally almighty, terrible and frightful were the Oriental gods. No comparison with the Olympians, who were full of shortcomings, that is, they were human…

No comparison whatsoever with the Olympians who were full of shortcomings, that is, they were human, made in the image of the mortals that had created them, the Greeks, their way of life and their society – or, rather: societies, for Hellas, its topography, generated decentralization. The land was most beautiful, indeed, but not a paradise on earth. Living standards could improve through conquest, but also through expansion, colonization. Either way, each option contributed to an even greater decentralization.

Life, therefore, was not a “test for some happy afterlife” – an idea that the common people of the “Asiatic mode of production” should necessarily entertain. The Greeks were inspired and shaped by Hellenic Nature. They philosophized and discussed public issues under her beneficial influence. She “dictated” to them the forms of their state and political organizations – regardless if they both fomented discord. Their model was the city-state polis;democracy was their ideal; and freedom the highest virtue – regardless if they lived in a slave and “male” society. It seems contradictory… Moreover, their democracy was pure, direct; today’s so-called “democracy” is the so-called “representative” where power is not exercised by the people anymore but by their so-called “representatives”, contrary to the very definition of democracy (see our next additional Voyage). More and more oxymora and paradoxa…

Living in this environment, the Greeks have not only summarized, but also humanized, the ancient world. They have shown us what measure, proportion and harmony are. They have turned knowledge and culture as every free citizen’s right, and not a closed caste’s privilege. And they have left their invaluable heritage systematized and documented for future generations. Just like their gods, however, they have been full of shortcomings, born out of the same environment that has fostered their virtues, with individualism underlying all. They are called les enfants terribles de l’antiquité. Rather, I would say, of human history…

THE MEDITERRANEAN has always exerted an irresistible charm on us for far too many reasons. If the Hellenes have done great, they owe it to this sea rather than the mainland. The Phoenicians likewise, just like every other Mediterranean people that have left their mark on the history of Mare Nostrum. The same is true, more or less, for all coastal peoples. We are primarily Mediterranean peoples, and only secondarily European, Asian, African, Balkan, Levantine, or whatever else. Despite that, however, very few have Mediterranean conscience: the sea that once united us, even during our military confrontations, now seems as if keeping us apart.

The importance of this small, landlocked sea is far greater than we can imagine: the Mediterranean has been the most crucial crucible of civilizations in the world, because it unites the three most important continents: Africa, where man was born; Asia, where he was civilized; and Europe, where he was liberated – on Greek soil, as is well known. Thus, it was quite natural for the Mediterranean aura to penetrate deep into the territory of these continents and its historical space to greatly exceed its narrow geographic boundaries.

The Mediterranean has been the most crucial crucible of civilizations. Thus, its historical space has greatly exceeded its narrow geographic boundaries.

Geographically the Mediterranean is clearly delineated. Besides, the sea was given this name because it is surrounded by these three continents and looks like a huge lagoon, having only one natural outlet leading to the Atlantic: the Strait of Gibraltar through the legendary Pillars of Heracles. However, as a historical space it is far broader. As a rule, human societies regarded no natural obstacles as eternally insurmountable. After a while, the growth of civilization – and the courage of some daring voyagers – always led to the overcoming of any barriers, thus creating wider unities of exchange and cooperation.

This far broader sea, the “universal” Mediterranean, is the one we voyage around: from the Atlantic coast of Iberia and the Maghreb to the Indian subcontinent and the Chinese border in Central Asia, often crossing some complementary seas such as the Black and the Caspian Seas, the Red Sea and the Gulf. We also sail out into the Indian Ocean, due to the extensive Afro-Asian exchange, caravan through the Sahara, for even the desert was unable to obstruct the cultural osmosis bearing rich fruit to the North of the Black Continent – without excluding crossing the Atlantic, mainly destined for Latin or Iberian America, but also for several Northern parts of the New World, where the Mediterranean culture is still omnipresent.

This area is certainly so vast that no one is willing to readily accept there are common features. Skepticism, nevertheless, starts dwindling away when one is reminded of the diverse exchange since age-old times between the two most remote peninsulas at the extremities of this integrated historical space: the Indian and the Iberian. These contacts were later reinforced with the Arab conquest of Iberia and, even more, with the arrival of the Indian Gypsies (Roma) to the peninsula.

It goes without saying, of course, that in this area, where the Hellenic presence was once very strong, apart from a certain minimum common denominator, there is such a plethora of sounds and art forms that it would be foolish – and dangerous – for anyone to try to “square” in an alleged attempt of some sort of classification.

The challenge amid all those myriads of local idioms and aesthetic standards, both folk and erudite, is unity within diversity. This unity must be safeguarded at all costs in the current era of galloping homogenization, which instead launches a certain “unity” through uniformity – that is, something that must be imposed on man, for it is against human nature.

The challenge amid myriads of local idioms and aesthetic standards is unity within diversity, rejecting any form of uniformity.

Sound-diversity, like biodiversity – diversity in all forms – is the absolutely necessary condition not only for the survival, but also for the further development of mankind and human civilization. But beware: the response to the so-called “globalization” will not be given through entrenchment but openness to the outside world, expanding exchange and cooperation on equal terms, with honesty and tolerance. Those who have confidence in themselves adopt an “open doors” policy.

“And those who do not consent?”, you may wonder. “What shall be done with all those who constantly undermine this unity having powers outside the Mediterranean backing them? Is it possible at this moment for the perpetrators and the victims to coexist, such as the IsraeliJews and the Palestinians? Are we day-dreaming?”

It is true that whatever the differentiation between citizens and politicians, the people are not blameless because, as a well-known saying goes, “every people deserve the persons who govern them” (Plato), or, if you like, “toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite” (every nation gets the government it deserves,Joseph de Maistre).

The degradation of a citizen to the status of a subject certainly makes things worse, especially now that the intelligentsia is mostly sold-out and has no role to play anymore. The identification of cultured people with states or parties is no longer conceivable, for it has been proven beyond any doubt that it constitutes the worst service to arts and letters – to culture as a whole, to humanity.

If we accept that mankind is able to create a world of peace and co-operation in the interest of all peoples, we can say: those who do not consent are de facto excluded from any efforts to forge a Mediterranean unity. That is why honesty precedes tolerance – where, of course, there are limits. We are not diplomats. In the final analysis, has diplomacy ever promoted culture?

● Big Brother ● “Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars” ● Massacre of Thessalonica and Ruination of Delphi by Emperor Theodosius ● The Libraries of Alexandria and Antioch, Nalanda (India) and the House of Wisdom (Baghdad) Burned Down ● The Desecration of Alexander’s Soma ● The Brutal Murder of Hypatia by Christians ● Crusades ● Colonialism and Slave Trade ● Genocide of the American Indians

NATURAL SELECTION, Charles Darwin’s revolutionary evolutionary theory, already a cornerstone of biology, does not apply to man-made creations which are instead “artificially selected” (censored), on the basis of ideological prejudice against non-conformist ideas. It seems that Big Brother has been omnipresent long before George Orwell’s 1984, burning not only libraries and books, but on many occasions the authors themselves, while “purifying” society and rewriting “history”. The motives of such crimes against humanity are rarely outright politico-economical; as a rule, they are disguised behind a religious mask – especially when this religion is monotheistic, that is, antagonistic to the other religions, authoritarian and, of course, power-hungry. Note that, among the monotheistic religions, Christianity is the unchallenged champion of such crimes. Here is a short list of the first phase:

“Βurning of books and burying of scholars”: late dynastic painting

The “burning of books and burying of scholars” campaign (213–210 BCE) during the Qin Dynasty of ancient China epitomizes this “war against freedom of thought and speech” that is still raging: all Chronicles except those by the Qin historians, the Classics of Poetry and History, and works of different schools, should be burned; and anyone discussing these books be executed. More than 460 scholars, or almost 1200 according to another count, were buried alive. Soon the campaign led to revolutions and war resulting to further damages of historical materials: the capital was sacked and burned in 207 BCE destroying also the officially sanctioned works which had been retained in the imperial library.

Epicurus’ book Established beliefs was burned in a Paphlagonian marketplace by order of a charlatan prophet (ca 160 CE).

The Christian emperor Jovian, who was given the “purple” (the crown, as they used to say of later kings) due to a misunderstanding in 363, reestablished Christianity as the official religion, ending the brief revival of Paganism under his predecessor, Julian the “Philosopher” or “Apostate” (depending on the religious outlook that reveals the priorities of each creed). Being under the influence of Athanasius of Alexandria, and moving from tolerance to bigotry, he subjected those who worshipped ancestral gods to the death penalty, and ordered the Library of Antioch to be burned down.

Omphalos of Gaia (navel of the Earth): Delphi with the Temple of Apollo (reconstruction)

Jovian did not have the time to complete his ‘mission’: he died (or was killed) half a year later. This task would be undertaken in a while by Iberian-born Theodosius I. His policy of tolerance in the beginning of his reign (379–395) gave way to bigotry. The turning point was probably the order to his troops to commit the abominable massacre of Thessalonica in 390, slaughtering at least 7,000 citizens in the Hippodrome, after they had rebelled against his Germanic mercenary garrison (see Chronicle 3). Ambrose, the archbishop of Milan, was quick to capitalize on this opportunity: he excommunicated Theodosius and thereby turned him into his obedient instrument. The emperor submitted himself completely to the Church and agreed to do public penance, promising to adopt a new role as the champion of the Christian faith. The result was the so-called “Theodosian decrees”, breaking up Pagan institutions and destroying their temples. The first act of his penance was perhaps the ruination of the Temple of Apollo and most of the statues and works of art in Delphi in the name of Christianity in the same year, 390. The sacred site was completely destroyed by Christian zealots in an attempt to obliterate all traces of Paganism, which was already proscribed, a “religio illicit”: Pagans would be sought out by informers, brought to court and in many cases executed. This “war on the infidels” was transferred to Alexandria the next year.

A scholar on a sarcophagus, 180-200 CE

In 391 the gigantic Serapeum together with what was left out of the Great Library of Alexandria were looted and burned by troops and Christian fanatics, at the decrees of Theodosius and archbishop Theophilus, who is described in Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as “the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue, a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood.” Theophilus had discovered a hidden temple of Pagans and, together with his followers, mockingly displayed their sacred artifacts offending them enough to provoke an attack on the Christians. The latter counter-attacked, forcing the Pagans to retreat to the Serapeum. Theodosius gave Theophilus the go-ahead to destroy, and just asked him to avoid another massacre. Socrates Scholasticus, a contemporary Christian historiographer, states in his Ecclesiastical History that Theophilus “caused the Mithraeum to be cleaned out… Then he destroyed the Serapeum… The heathen temples… were therefore razed to the ground, and the images of their gods molten into pots and other convenient utensils for the use of the Alexandrian church.” The temples that were thus demolished could be declared “abandoned”, as the archbishop immediately noted in applying for permission to convert them into Christian churches – an act that must have received general sanction, for cave-like mithraea turned into crypts and temples forming the foundations of 5th century churches appear throughout the Roman Empire. Note that we know almost nothing about Mithraism, a religion contemporary with (and rival of) Christianism, practiced from about the 1st to 4th centuries CE. Standing triumphantly among the ruins, Theophilus looked around in search of his next enemy, turning against the followers of Origen and embarking on a paranoid campaign that killed 10,000 monks (the massacre was unavoidable, after all…)

City plan of ancient Alexandria with the four flashpoints framed in red: the Museum and the Library, the Serapeum, and somewhere between the “Soma” of Alexander

The destruction of the Serapeum was seen by many authors as representative of the triumph of Christianity over other religions (or the victory of a Jewish god over Hellenic, Roman, Egyptian, Persian, and other gods – and hence cultures); while that of the Library of Alexandria symbolized “knowledge and culture ruined”. The library held over half a million documents from Hellas, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, India, and many other countries, being part of a larger research institute, an ancient university, called the Musaeum (House of the Muses), where many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world studied and worked, such as: Archimedes, the greatest genius of antiquity; Ctesibius, the father of pneumatics and inventor of the hydraulis or water organ, the precursor of the pipe organ; Euclid, the father of geometry; Hipparchus, the father of astronomy and founder of trigonometry; Hero, the father of mechanics and inventor of the first steam engine (aeolipile), who was a follower of the Atomists; Eratosthenes, who argued for a spherical earth and calculated its circumference, as well as the tilt of its axis, to near-accuracy; Aristarchus, who proposed the first heliocentric system of the universe; his case is an excellent example: his only extant work, On sizes and distances of the Sun and the Moon, is based on the geocentric model. The other book, where he proposed the alternative hypothesis of heliocentrism, is known only through citations by other scientists like Archimedes. Is this just a coincidence? Absolutely not!

Some more examples of the destruction of Pagan temples in the late 4th century, as recorded in surviving texts, are: the wider destruction of holy sites that spread rapidly throughout Egypt; the levelling of all the temples in Gaza; the destruction of temples in Syria; the destruction of temples and images in, and surrounding, Carthage; Martin of Tours’ attacks on holy sites in Gaul…

Reconstruction of the procession carrying Alexander’s body based on Diodorus‘ description

In this atmosphere of chaos and polarization, utmost decay and moral degradation, proclaimed as “the triumph of Christianity against idolatry”, the symbolism of a “Victorious Jesus” could never be totally overwhelming without the ‘defeat’ and ‘conquest’ of the invincible conqueror Alexander. The great king had died (probably poisoned) in Babylon in 323 BC. His body was en route to Macedon when it was hijacked by Ptolemy Soter for the prestige of having Alexander’s tomb in Egypt. The deceased, who had been declared “the son of Amon” by the god’s oracle at Siwa Oasis, asked shortly before his death to be buried there, in the temple of Zeus Amon, rather than alongside his actual father, Philip, at Aegae. Ptolemy Philopator built a magnificent mausoleum in Alexandria, inside a huge sacred precinct, known as Soma (Body), which became one of the most famous and sacred sanctuaries of the ancient world, for Alexander was worshiped as a god in the Macedonian and the Roman Empires – especially in the city he had founded, where he was like a patron. A large number of rulers and politicians, officers and officials, both Hellenes and Romans, paid their respects to Alexander visiting the mausoleum. Julius Caesar was the first Roman leader to go to the Soma, making a pilgrimage to the grave of his hero. Many others followed, from Augustus to Severus. However, the tomb was also looted by villains like Caligula, who removed the breastplate, and Caracalla, who took the tunic, ring, and belt in 215, while his troops were looting Alexandria for several days, slaughtering over 20,000 citizens, mainly young people, because of a satire produced in the city mocking his claims that he had killed his brother and co-emperor Geta in self-defense.

The Library in its heyday…

However, even during such a bloodbath and plunder, with the sole exception of those ‘pickpockets’ wearing the imperial purple, there was no real threat to Alexander’s Soma. Such a threat appeared in the next century. Ammianus Marcellinus relates that ca 361 Bishop George posed a rhetorical question to the people of Alexandria concerning the great and magnificent temple of the city’s genius: “How long will this tomb stand?”, he asked. By genius Ammianus meant the tutelary deity of the city and thence Alexander. Two years later, “in 363 George was killed for repeated acts of pointed outrage, insult, and pillage of the most sacred treasures of the city.” However, George was not alone. In 391 Theodosius declared illegal the veneration of Alexander, as well, together with all the other Pagan gods, and then, according to Alexandre Grandazzi’s Historia, “a violent Christian and anti-Pagan riot exploded leading to the destruction of the great temple of Serapis, and possibly reached… the Soma: an allusion… in a speech by the orator Libanius indicates that the body was removed from the tomb to be exposed publicly for the last time.” It seems that the body was hijacked for a second time and buried in a Christian manner because, according to the new dogma, it was to be interred, while the preceding practice of entombment was thought to be idolatrous. Everything referring to Paganism was then destroyed, while the burial of important, illustrious personages was no longer done in mausoleums but in Christian basilicas and underground. It is the time when the remains of Alexander “mysteriously” vanish. Already at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries, John Chrysostom, another “enemy” of Theophilus, said in a sermon that the Macedonian king’s tomb was at that time “unknown to his own people”, in other words, to the Alexandrian Pagans. Some decades later Theodoret included Alexander in a list of famous men whose graves were lost.(*)

(*) There are a couple of references to a mosque or tomb of Alexander in Arabic texts dating from the 9th and 10th centuries. They probably allude to a mosque that was reconstructed from ancient architectural elements in the 11th century, where the empty sarcophagus of Alexander was found by Napoleon’s forces in 1798. Leo Africanus, who visited Alexandria around 1517, wrote:

“In the midst of the ruins of Alexandria, there still remains a small edifice, built like a chapel, worthy of notice on account of a remarkable tomb held in high honour by the Mohammedans; in which sepulchre, they assert, is preserved the body of Alexander the Great… An immense crowd of strangers come thither, even from distant countries, for the sake of worshipping and doing homage to the tomb, on which they likewise frequently bestow considerable donations.”

George Sandys, who visited Alexandria in 1611, was shown a sepulchre there, venerated as Alexander’s resting place. Whatever the fate of the tomb that was “mysteriously” lost again, these testimonies constitute a double defeat on Christianity: a) Alexander’s veneration continued either with or even without his body, despite its desecration; b) a comparison between the two monotheistic religions on this issue ends up overwhelmingly against Christianity.

Alexander the Great, mosaic,
by Alexandros Giannios

According to 21st century historians, among them Andrew Chugg, author of four books on Alexander, one entitled Alexander the Great, the Lost Tomb, there is a possibility that the embalmed body of the great Macedonian might be preserved in St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, where it has been mistakenly venerated as that of Mark the Evangelist! Mark had gone to Alexandria in 49 and founded the Church there, becoming its first bishop. However, there were Alexandrian Pagans who resented his efforts to turn them away from the worship of their traditional gods. In 68 they placed a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets until he was dead (the mobs, you see, were not a Christian invention: they have been an essential and indispensable “tool” of each one ideology and every doctrine). When two Venetian merchants brought the mummy from Muslim Alexandria to Venice in the 9th century, the Doge ordered the so-called Chiesa d’Oro (Church of Gold) to be built next to his palace. The possession of a truly important relic would have serious political consequences. With a supposed evangelist on its territory, Venice acquired a status almost equal to that of Rome itself. During the construction of a new basilica in 1063, the relics “mysteriously” disappeared. According to tradition, Mark himself revealed the location of his remains in 1094 by extending his arm from a pillar to the doge of the time…
Since 1811 this mummy rests in a crypt under the altar of the church inside a marble sarcophagus on which there are also several Macedonian symbols. Copts, on the contrary, believe that Mark’s head remains in a church named after him in Alexandria, parts of his relics are in St Mark’s Cairo Cathedral, and the rest are in Venice. Nevertheless, there is one little detail: early Christian writers such as Dorotheus, Eutychius, and the author of the Chronicón Paschale say that Mark’s body was burned by the Pagans… A scientific study on these remains would reveal the secret of their origin. Radiocarbon dating would establish whether the body is old enough to match to that of Alexander. Likewise, it would be possible to reconstruct his facial features from the skull (wherever it is), and inspect the bones for signs of multiple injuries, particularly the one inflicted on Alexander’s chest when an arrow penetrated into his sternum… Do you really think there will be any Church officials who would ever allow such a study, putting at risk the Church’s history for History’s sake?

Hypatia, by Charles William Mitchell, brutally murdered
by a mob of fanatic monks inside the church that was…
“Saint” Cyril’s headquarters!

The Great Terror in Alexandria culminated in 415 with the brutal murder of the philosopher, mathematician and astronomer Hypatia, “a most beautiful, most vertuous, most learned, and every way accomplish’d Lady; who was torn to pieces by the Clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the pride, emulation, and cruelty of their Archbishop, commonly, but undeservedly, stil’d St. Cyril”, according to the philosopher John Toland. The astronomer Carl Sagan linked Hypatia’s death with the destruction of the celebrated library. The murder, symbolizing the end of Alexandria as a centre of wisdom and scholarship, was instigated by Theophilus’ nephew and successor, Cyril, the so-called “Pillar of Faith”, proclaimed as “Doctor of the Church”, and also canonized as… “Saint” (of all Christian denominations, while his uncle has been treated as a “saint” only by the Copts). Emperor Theodosius II instead described Cyril as a “proud pharaoh”.
Waging a power struggle with the governor of Alexandria, Orestes, he agitated a mob of 500 monks, a “Sturmabteilung” of fanatics, possessed “by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader [a minor cleric] named Peter”, Socrates Scholasticus testified. They “waylaid [Hypatia] returning home and, dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with ostraka [potsherds]. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them”… Of course, nothing was left from Hypatia’s writings.

The Caesareum was not just any church: it was “Saint” Cyril’s headquarters! And, of course, it was not a church but an ancient temple that was “sanctified” at the end of the 4th century when the Christians started appropriating the property of the other religions to obliterate all traces of them all around the world. The Caesareum was conceived by Cleopatra who wished to dedicate it to her lover, Marc Antony. It was finished by the man who “finished” them, Octavian Augustus, who dedicated it to… himself, after he obliterated all traces of Marc Antony not only in the temple but all around Alexandria…

Etrusca Disciplina, the Etruscan books of cult and divination, untouched by all ancient cultures, were collected and burned in the 5th century, a millennium after the Etruscans had ceased to exist as a tribe…

The Crusades were conducted under the sanction of the Catholic Church after the East – West Schism. Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade in 1095 with the declared goal of restoring Christian access to the area of Jerusalem. There followed six major Crusades against Muslim territories in the East and many minor ones as part of a 200-year struggle for control of the “Holy Land” that finally failed. After the fall of the last Christian stronghold in 1291, the Vatican mounted no further coherent response in the East. Many historians give equal importance to comparable, Papal-blessed military campaigns against “Pagans”, “heretics”, and “excommunicated” people, undertaken for a variety of economic, political, and religious reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Aragonese Crusade, the Northern Crusades, and the Iberian Reconquista. The “burning of books and heretics or infidels” was, of course, in the agenda of all Crusades. The conduct of the Crusaders was shocking not only to modern sensibilities but to European contemporaries, as well, for the Crusaders pillaged the countries in transit, and there was at least one case of cannibalism in the Levant! In the Rhineland the First Crusade resulted in the massacre of 8,000 Jews in the first of Europe’s pogroms. It also resulted in the slaughter of 70,000 citizens in the fall of Jerusalem. The nobles carved up the territory that they had gained rather than return it to the Byzantines, as they had vowed to do. Even worse, the Fourth Crusade resulted in the conquest and sacking of Constantinople, and the partition of the Byzantine Empire.

Nalanda, an ancient centre of higher learning with a great library in Bihar, India, was sacked by Turkic Muslim invaders from what is now southern Afghanistan in 1193. The university was so vast that it is reported to have burned for three months after the invaders set fire to it.

The House of Wisdom was a library, translation institute and research centre in Abbasid-era Baghdad. The scholars, primarily Persians and Greeks, translated all available scientific and philosophic Hellenic texts. Note that a great part of ancient Greek literature was transmitted to Europe thanks to these translations into Arabic. The House and all other libraries in the city were destroyed by the pro-Christian Mongol ruler Hulagu in 1258. It was said that the waters of the Tigris ran black for six months with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river.

Pope Nicholas V may have tried to revive the spirit of the old Crusades in the East in 1452, one year before the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, as his nephew, Loukas Notaras, was the Byzantine Megas Doux (Grand Duke). However, the Europeans’ attention was already focused on the more promising opportunities opening up in the West. Thus, Nicholas’ papal bull, renewed repeatedly by future Pontiffs, granted Portugal (and later Spain) “full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and Pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms… and other property… and to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery.” Effectively, these “geographically unlimited” bulls extended the Crusades’ legacy all over the world justifying European colonialism and, at the same time, “ushered in the West African slave trade”. This trade was about to take off very soon with the transport of African slaves to America, and the Vatican would continue “granting permissions” to guarantee its share.

During the 15th century, Muslim books were burned wholesale by Catholic Spain. About 5,000 Arabic poetic manuscripts were consumed by flames in the public square at Granada in 1499 on the orders of the Archbishop of Toledo. At the same time a number of Hebrew Bibles and other Jewish books were burned at the behest of the Spanish Inquisition.

Aztec Calendar

The Aztec emperor Itzcoatl, ruling from 1427-28 to 1440, ordered the burning of all historical codices for it was “not wise that all the people should know”… This allowed the development of a state-sanctioned “history” and mythos – but did not prevent the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés in 1521. It was the starting point of a new era of genocides committed by Christians holding the sword in one hand and the cross in the other. The new crusaders and slave traders, together with the inquisitors, had new challenges to face, new frontiers to cross, new “books to burn and infidels to bury” in the “New World”, under the sanction and arbitration of the “Holy See” – with profit in mind, as always…

This intervening “Chronicle within a Chronicle”, I remind you, had Abdera of Andalusia as a starting point, during the revival of an ancient Periplus of Iberia in the previous Chronicle. We then voyaged to Abdera of Thrace and met its most celebrated citizen, Democritus. Plato’s hostility towards the atomist philosopher and his appeal to his students to destroy any Democritean work they could find, combined with the fact that no such work has survived, were more than a challenge for a “Periplus within a Periplus”, sailing in a sea the Big Brothers have tried to erase from the maps. The ocean of abuses is hidden there; we just gleaned some information on the initial period (until the time the first Spanish caravels crossed the Atlantic), limiting ourselves to cases of intentional crimes that came to our attention. A study in depth would reveal the Prince of Darkness himself…

What conclusions can we draw? An innocent person would expect to find the first traces of the idea of human rights in religions, especially the monotheistic ones, which should uphold the sanctity of human existence. In reality, the history of human rights finds traces of them in some legal codes of antiquity (Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Hellas, Rome), but not in the Bible, skipping Judaism and Christianity. The reason is that the ones who cared about such rights were the philosophers and not the prophets (with the exception of Muhammad who was obliged to deal with the subject). The kings who wanted to conquer the world, and the priests who wanted to conquer the mind, infringed as a rule on human rights. I think that if the Declaration of Human Rights and freedom of religion had been adopted and observed in the beginning of the Common Era, the only monotheists in the world today would be the Jews!

Reconstruction of Tenochtitlan: with a population of almost 300.000, it is believed it was the largest city in the world at that time, the capital of an empire of almost 5 million people. Compared to Europe, only Paris, Venice and Constantinople might have rivaled it. It was five times the size of the contemporary London. Entering the city, the Spaniards thought it was a dream. These were the “savages” that had to be Christianized and “civilized”…

THERE ARE TIMES in these Voyages and Chronicles, as in similar cases when you have to present a thesis and you need documentation, that you know in general terms beforehand what you are looking for while searching for clues. Some other times, however, the clew you have in hand to find your way in the labyrinth of history leads you to unexpected ends, “into harbours seen for the first time”; and then a desire is born to “stop at Phoenicianemporia… / and visit many Egyptian cities / to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars”, as Cavafy advises in his Ithaca. These are the happiest moments of a research. It happened exactly that when from the Aegeanemporia in the historical space of the Mediterranean I ended up following itinerant Minoan artists to distant lands! I felt I needed to set forth more information about these emporia after I had referred to Naucratis in the previous Chronicle, realizing that I already used this term several times in connection with colonies or trading posts; but the emporia were in fact neither colonies nor trading posts, though related to both. Writing in the Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World on Commercial posts and harbours, Elias Petropoulos tried to clear things out:

The term emporion denoting a colony or a type of settlement first appears in ancient literature rather late, during the 5th century BC. According to some scholars, the emporion should be understood as the locale of the emporos (that is, merchant), i.e. the person who travels to buy and sell commodities. The word emporos etymologically originates from the preposition en and the word poros (which means sea route). This word appears in theOdysseyof Homer twice. In both these cases the epic poet obviously means a private individual who travels for professional reasons. So we could suppose that the word emporion originates from the word emporos. This word does not appear on [Mycenaean] Linear B tablets, and this is rather surprising, but it also leads to the obvious conclusion that this word was coined at a later time. Scholarship on the subject argues that the word or the term emporion (in the sense of a colony or settlement and not that of a simple commercial transaction or exchange of products) appears first in writing in the works of Herodotus in the mid-5th century BC. By the 4th century BC the word is found on an inscription known as ‘the inscription of Pistiros’ which has been unearthed quite recently in a settlement of the modern-day Bulgarian (ancient Thracian) hinterland, close to Philippopolis…

Emporion < Emporos (merchant) < en + poros = one who is on a sea route

According to information coming from Herodotus’ fourth book of theHistories[entitledMelpomene], the Black Sea was home to several emporia, which is the precise word the historian uses to define these settlements… There are also more scattered references to emporia in the other eight books of Herodotus’ work. These are emporia located outside the Black Sea, and are situated in the Mediterranean. Of all these, the case of Naucratis causes puzzlement: the historian refers to it using both the terms emporion and polis(that is, city). Many studies have dealt with this issue, but unfortunately we still cannot determine the early nature of this settlement with certainty. The term usually understood as the opposite of emporion is apoikia (that is, colony), which is considered as a complete form of settlement in the model of the ancient Greek cities, i.e. a settlement featuring a distinct form of political and social organization. A colony was a settlement obviously established in the context of a predetermined plan of action and was carried out under the auspices of a god (or gods) with every formality on the part of the metropolis, possessing an agricultural hinterland and its own coinage… However, in some cases, the emporion may be characterized as a proto-polis or a proto-settlement, in the sense that it can act as the early stage in the establishment of a colony or a city.

Emporia (sing. emporion, or emporium in Latin), according to Wikipedia, were places which the traders of one people had reserved to their business interests within the territory of another people. Famous emporia in Egypt, except Naucratis, included Avaris and Sais, where the Athenian legislator Solon went in 590 BCE to acquire the knowledge of the Egyptians. Similar emporia were founded in the Levant, such as Al-Mina and Posideion in Syria. Sais (Σάϊς, or Zau in ancient Egyptian) was located in the Western NileDelta. The city’s patron goddess was Neith. The Greeks, such as Herodotus, Plato and Diodorus Siculus, identified her with Athena and hence postulated a primordial link to Athens. Diodorus recounts that Athena built Sais before the deluge that supposedly destroyed Athens and Atlantis. While all Hellenic cities were destroyed during that cataclysm, the Egyptian cities survived. In Plato’s Timaeusand Critias(around 395 BCE), a priest in Sais entrusted to Solon the story of Atlantis, its military aggression against Greece and Egypt, and its eventual defeat and destruction by natural catastrophe.(a)

(a) The story of Atlantis is most probably connected with the Sea Peoples’ raids and the consequent Bronze Agecollapse. This should have been the “cataclysm” that destroyed Hellas, while Egypt barely survived… (See mainly Chronicle 5).

Taureador: Fresco fragment from Avaris, 16th BCE

Avaris (Αὔαρις, today’s Tell el-Dab’a), the capital of Egypt under the CanaaniteHyksos, was also located in the Nile delta in the northeastern region. Its position at the hub of Egypt’s emporia made it a major administrative and commercial centre. Excavations have shown that there was a busy harbour catering to over 300 ships during a trading season. Artifacts inside the precinct of the palace, possibly a temple, have produced goods from all over the Aegean world. Most impressively, there were even Minoan-like wall paintings similar to those found in Crete at the Palace of Knossos. It is speculated that there was close contact with the rulers of Avaris, whoever they were, and the large building representing the frescoes allowed the Minoans to have a ritual life in Egypt. French archaeologist Yves Duhoux also proposed the existence of a Minoan colony on an island in the Nile delta.

Minoan Ladies in Blue fresco, ca 1525-1450 BCE

Outside of the Aegean, only three sites have an indisputable record of Minoan civilization, one being Avaris in Lower Egypt, the others Kabri and Alalakh in the Levant. Kabri, in Palestine near the Lebanese border, is notable for its Minoan style wall paintings. In the summer of 2009, more Aegean style frescoes were found at the site. Apparently, the Canaanite rulers of the city wished to associate with Mediterranean culture and not adopt Syrian and Mesopotamian styles of art like other cities in Canaan did. Alalakh was a late Bronze Age city-state in the area where SeleucidAntioch was to be founded at the end of the 4th century BCE. It was occupied from before 2000 BCE, when the first palace was built, and likely destroyed in the 12th century by the Sea Peoples, as were many other towns of coastal Anatolia and the Levant. The city was never reoccupied, the nearby port of Al-Mina taking its place during the Iron Age.

Al-Mina (“The Port” in Arabic) is the name given by archaeologist Leonard Woolley to this ancient trading post in the estuary of the Orontes. According to Woolley, it was an early Hellenic trading colony, founded a little before 800 BCE in direct competition with the Phoenicians to the south. Large amounts of Greek pottery established its early Euboean connections, while the Syrian and Phoenician ware reflected a cultural mix typical of an emporium. The controversy whether Al-Mina is to be regarded as a native Syrian site, with local architecture and pots and a Hellenic presence, or as a Greek trading post, has not been resolved. Al-Mina served as an entrepôt for cultural influences that accompanied trade with Urartu and Assyria through the shortest caravan route. Pottery recovered from later levels after 700 BCE shows that a Hellenic presence endured through the 4th century BCE with pottery imported from Miletus and deftly imitated locally, apparently by Greek potters. Al-Mina is a key to understanding the role of early Hellenes in the East at the outset of the Orientalizing period of Greek cultural history. Robin Lane Fox has made a case for the Hellenic name of the site to have been Potamoi Karon mentioned by Diodorus Siculus; he suggestively linked it to karu (“trading post”) in an Assyrian inscription, which would give “Rivers of Emporia”.

Woolley identified Al-Mina with Herodotus’ and Strabo’s Posideion, but more recent scholarship places the latter at Ras al-Bassit, located 53 kilometres north of Latakia (the Hellenistic Laodicea) on the Mediterranean Sea. Excavations revealed a small settlement back to the late Bronze Age, when it may have functioned as an outpost of Ugarit to the south. Unlike Ugarit, Bassit survived to the passage of the Sea Peoples and into the Iron Age. It had strong links with Phoenicia and Cyprus, and a Greek presence was attested from the 7th century BCE. Posideion expanded and its acropolis was fortified in the Hellenistic period.

One of the two figurines Ram in a Thicket. The excavation at Ur was a joint venture of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania sharing the booty!

Woolley began work at Al-Mina in 1936, after the excavation at Ur in Mesopotamia, where he discovered Sumerian royal tombs of great wealth. He decided to work by the Mediterranean coast because he was interested in finding ties between the Aegean and the Mesopotamian civilizations, and wished to throw light, as he wrote, “upon the development of Cretan civilization and its connections with the great civilizations of Nearer Asia”. Disappointed in not finding a Bronze Age port at Al-Mina, he soon moved his interests to the earlier, more urbane site of Alalakh, where he worked before and after World War II (1937-39 and 1946-49). It seems, however, that his “view” was anything but “impartial”, for he, too, was “spectacled” wearing “Asiatic myopic glasses”. The clues on the “connections” he was interested in were there, of course; but, having already in mind an elaborate scenario, and possibly a hidden ambition to turn Arthur Evans’ work in Crete upside down, he led himself to erroneous conclusions. If Ur had been his Austerlitz, Alalakh turned out to be his Waterloo! His failure to interpret his findings correctly should be taught in every School of Archaeology and help every equally short-sighted scholar learn his/her lesson.(b)

Lawrence (left) and Woolley at Carchemish

(b) Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (1880-1960) has not been an ordinary archaeologist. Best known for his excavation at Ur, and knighted in 1935 for his contributions to his discipline, he is considered as one of the first “modern” archaeologists. Volunteered by Arthur Evans to run the excavation on a Roman site in Northern England, Woolley began his career there in 1906, later admitting that “I had never studied archaeological methods even from books… and I had not any idea how to make a survey or a ground-plan”. He worked with T. E. Lawrence, the later famous “Lawrence of Arabia”, on the excavation of the Hittite city of Carchemish in 1912-14. His work at Ur that began in 1922 led to the discovery of the royal tombs and inspired Agatha Christie in writing the novel Murder in Mesopotamia. The writer later married his assistant, Max Mallowan. Woolley was one of the first archaeologists to propose that the “great deluge” of the Bible was a local flood after identifying a flood-stratum at Ur of “…400 miles long and 100 miles wide; but for the occupants of the valley that was the whole world”…

Having already in mind an elaborate scenario, and possibly a hidden ambition to turn Arthur Evans’ work in Crete upside down, Woolley led himself to erroneous conclusions. If Ur had been his Austerlitz, Alalakh turned out to be his Waterloo! His failure to interpret his findings correctly should be taught in every School of Archaeology.

The uniqueness and seeming suddenness of the emergence of the Cretan palace system in the Aegean has often been explained by connections with and influences from the older advanced civilizations of the ancient Near East. In Alalakh… Woolley thought to have found what he had looked for: in Yarim-Lim’s palace he recognized “unmistakable connections” with Minoan Crete. Similar building techniques… as well as frescoes “identical in colouring, technique and style” at Alalakh and Knossos led him to the conclusion that “there can be no doubt but that Crete owes the best of its architecture, and its frescoes, to the Asiatic mainland” and that “we are bound to believe that trained experts, members of the Architects’ and Painters’ Guilds, were invited to travel overseas from Asia (possibly from Alalakh) to build and decorate the palaces of the Cretan rulers”.

“There can be no doubt but that Crete owes the best of its architecture, and its frescoes, to Asia… Trained experts, members of the Architects’ and Painters’ Guilds, were invited to travel overseas from Asia to build and decorate the palaces of the Cretan rulers”. (Leonard Woolley)

Charging bull and olive tree, relief in Knossos

Woolley’s main argument for this theory, which has been accepted by eminent scholars[!],(c) was that “Yarim-Lim’s palace antedates by more than a century the Cretan examples in the same style”… However, after a long debate on “Alalakh and Chronology”, Woolley’s date [“between circa 1780 and 1730 BC”] proved to be too high. Yarim-Lim of Alalakh was not – as Woolley had thought – Yarim-Lim I of Yamhad, the contemporary of the great Hammurapi of Babylon, but a younger brother of King Abban of Yamhad who gave Alalakh to him as an appanage principality…(d) The dates recently proposed by different scholars lie between ca. 1650 and 1575 BC. In regard to architecture… the evidence is far from substantiating Woolley’s theory of Near Eastern architects working in Crete… The orthostates of Alalakh are ca. 300 years later than the orthostates of the first phase of the Old Palace at Phaistos… Fragments of wall paintings from Yarim-Lim’s palace show characteristic Minoan motifs which appear contemporary or even earlier in Crete. Moreover, the sense of movement detectable in the wall-painting fragments from Yarim-Lim’s palace is characteristically Minoan and in opposition to Near Eastern tradition.

(d) There were three kings of Yamhad under the name of Yarim-Lim and, of course, far more local rulers having the same name, such as the one in Alalakh. Woolley – more than anyone else – should have known better before he wrote that “Crete owes the best of its architecture, and its frescoes, to the Asiatic mainland”…

Papyrus fresco on Thera

Woolley’s strongest argument for a direct connection between the Alalakh paintings and those in Crete was that they both were executed in true fresco painting on wet lime plaster. But it is exactly this fact which definitely disproves Woolley’s theory of the Near Eastern ancestry of Cretan fresco painting. Until most recently the Alalakh frescos formed the only known example of true fresco painting on the ancient Near East. In Crete, true fresco painting is known at least from ca. 1900 BC on. Thus true fresco painting apparently has been first invented on Crete, probably because it was suitable to the temperament of the Minoan artists. Thus, technique, style and iconography of the fresco fragments from the Yarim-Lim palace at Alalakh indicate that their resemblances to the Cretan wall-paintings worked in the reverse direction as that originally thought by Woolley.

“The sense of movement detectable in the wall-painting fragments is characteristically Minoan and in opposition to Near Eastern tradition… Technique, style and iconography indicate that their resemblances to the Cretan wall-paintings worked in the reverse direction as that thought by Woolley… Kabri and Alalakh do not have only single Minoan motifs foreign to ‘Greater Canaan’ but they show a purely Minoan iconography as well as technique. This can only mean they were executed by travelling Minoan artisans.” (Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier)

There is much evidence that Cretan objects of art were highly valued in the ancient Near East. In the Mari tablets Cretan imports are mentioned… The prestige character of the Cretan objects in the Mari texts is indicated by the fact that two of them were presented by King Zimri-Lim of Mari to other Mesopotamian Kings. As finds of Kamares pottery at Ugarit, Qatna, Byblos and Hazor demonstrate, this outstanding pottery was highly esteemed in the Levant. Thus, at least from the 19th century BC on, Crete within its relations to the Levant was not only the receiver but developed into an equal partner producing works of art for which there was a great demand in the Near East.(e) These Cretan works of art arrived by some kind of exchange or trade in the Levant. But, as Woolley has stated, “one cannot export a palace on board of a ship, nor is the ‘art and Mystery’ of fresco-working a form of merchandise”.(f)Do we therefore have to reconstruct just the reverse scenario as that suggested by Woolley, i.e. Cretan artisans travelling to Alalakh for painting the frescoes there?

(e) I ignore the Levantine contribution to the Minoan civilization and, unfortunately, Niemeier gives no information on the subject. What I do know is how much the Cretans were indebted to, and how much they were benefited by learning from, the Egyptians (see Chronicle 2). I can also imagine how much the Egyptians would have benefited if they were not so stuck-up to let themselves learn from the Cretans…

(f) I used a similar argument to show the necessity of Hellenic presence in Iberia: “What the Phoenician ships could not transport and, therefore, made the Greek presence absolutely necessary in Iberia, was Hellenic culture, art, ideas, architectural models, burial habits, and so on” (see Chronicle 7).

Knossos: the Throne Room with the griffins reconstructed

In “Greater Canaan”… there are two other sites which can contribute to the problem: Qatna and Tel Kabri.(g) Fragments of wall-paintings from the palace at Qatna show [techniques] in the characteristic Aegean manner. Tel Kabri lay on one of the most important trade routes of the ancient Near East, the later so-calledVia Maris [Way of the Philistines]…(h)In the palace of the local ruler… a threshold was plastered and painted with… similar floor-techniques and designs of the Minoan palaces but not from the Ancient Near East… There is evidence that the walls of this room were also covered with painted plaster of which unfortunately only tiny fragments have been preserved. The plaster floor has been painted in true fresco technique… found also in Cretan and Theran fresco painting but not in tempera and fresco secco. The colours in the floor’s painting are… very similar to those of Cretan and of Theran wall-painting… Originally the floor… imitated the slabs of a stone pavement… ln Crete painted plaster floors imitating slab-paved floors are known from [ca 2000 BCE]. Other parts of the Kabri floor were decorated with floral motifs. Among them are chains of stylized linear iris blossoms of a characteristic Minoan type which occurs first in frescoes and vase-painting [in 1700-1500 BCE]. Such kind of decorative mixture is a characteristic feature of Minoan fresco painting… The Kabri floor and also the fresco fragments from Yarim-Lim’s palace at Alalakh do not have only single Minoan motifs foreign to “Greater Canaan” which could be explained as intrusive or incorporated elements arriving by motif transfer, but they show a purely Minoan iconography as well as technique. This can only mean that they were executed by travelling Minoan artisans…

(g) Greater Canaan: “the area between the Amuq plain [where Antioch was later built] to the north and the deserts to the south and to the east for the middle and late Bronze Age… appears to form a largely uniform civilization with regional variations.” (Ruth Amiran).

The excavations at Kabri were directed by Aharon Kempinski and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier.

(h) The historical name of the road, sadly for the IsraeliJews, was Way of the Philistines because it crossed through the Philistine plain, where the Gaza Strip is. Via Maris was “fished up” out of Vulgate – “via maris”, meaning “by the way of the sea” – without specifying any road (there was no such Roman term denoting a road anywhere). The modern name was adopted so as to expel the Palestinians from their homeland even on archaeological terms…

La Petite Parisienne de Crète…

We have evidence for exchange of information on the equipment of the palaces within the ancient Near East (to which Minoan Crete belonged in a certain sense as a westernmost member). That Cretans actually travelled to the Levantine coast is proved by a tablet from the Mari archives mentioning a Cretan who purchases tin at Ugarit from agents of the Mari palace. A tale in the mythological poetry of Ugarit is of highest interest in our context. In it the goddess Anat is sending the divine messenger over the sea to the god of handicrafts, Kothar wa-Khasis, who is brought from his throne in Kptr (almost unanimously identified as Caphtor = Crete)(i) to build a splendid palace for god Baal and to furnish it with precious works of art. As Arvid Schou Kapelrud has stated, Kothar is “the master-builder and the master-smith as he is found in the Near Eastern courts of this time, a highly skilled specialist”. In Canaanite mythology the god of handicrafts was called from Crete to furnish the palaces of the deities with precious works of art; in reality the rulers of Tel Kabri (Rehov) and Alalakh (and other cities, possibly Qatna) asked the rulers of Crete for sending artisans to decorate their palaces with fresco painting. As has been demonstrated by Carlo Zaccagnini, the sending of specialized workers is well-attested in the framework of the diplomatic relations between the rulers in the ancient Near East, their transfers are inserted into the dynamics and formal apparatus of the practice of gift-exchange.

(i) “KPTR” may be identified with “Caphtor”; but the latter’s equation with Crete is the least probable scenario. Biblical Caphtor may refer to: a) Pelusium in the Nile Delta; b) Cilicia; c) Cyprus; and d) Crete (see Chronicle 5). Egypt is also indicated here because in all references to Kothar, except the above-mentioned poetic tale, his abode is identified as “HKPT”, read perhaps as “Hikaptah”, or “House of the ka (soul) of Ptah”, that is, Memphis. The Hellenes pronounced this Hikaptah as Aegyptos, hence the name of the country in many languages.

Minoan fresco frieze at Avaris reconstructed

After the discoveries in Alalakh and Kabri, the Minoan frescoes in Avaris excavated by Manfred Bietak“instantly created much sensation, since among the scenes depicted on them are spectacular representations of bull leaping so closely identified with Minoan cult and culture”, Wolf-Dietrich and Barbara Niemeier commented in another paper on Minoan Frescoes in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Minoan gold ring depicting bull leaping

“From 1990 on, we suggested that the Kabri and the Alalakh frescoes were painted by travelling Aegean specialists, and [some time later] Bietak and Nanno Marinatos did the same for the Avaris frescoes”. There is a minor problem among archaeologists on the date of these frescoes. Wishing perhaps to please everyone, “Bietak and Marinatos came to the conclusion that ‘Minoan wall painting existed in Avaris both during the late Hyksos period and the early 18th [Thutmosid] Dynasty’. Bietak himself had regarded as possible that ‘trade… links between Avaris and Crete… might have survived a dynastic change and might have carried on into the 18th Dynasty, even after the fall of the Hyksos.’ There is indeed enough evidence from history that the kind of diplomatic and economic relations which apparently are behind these fresco paintings can survive the changes of regimes. According to Bietak, ‘king Ahmose, the founder of the 18th Dynasty, fits particularly well into the picture of Minoan connections.’ He imagines the possibility of a political deal between Ahmose and the ‘Minoan Thalassocracy’ in which the Minoan fleet helped Ahmose – who had no fleet – against the danger still threatening from the Hyksos harbour bases in southern Palestine. There is no archaeological or textual evidence for the latter hypothesis, and it recalls rather imaginative and today forgotten scenarios connected with the expulsion of the Hyksos, like those according to which Mycenaean mercenaries helped Ahmose in evicting the Hyksos, or according to which fugitive Hyksos princes conquered the Argolid and subsequently were buried in the Shaft Graves at Mycenae. Moreover, Ahmose already had a fleet: he captured Avaris after a series of assaults by both land and water [and then] proceeded to southern Palestine.”

Ahmose fighting back the Hyksos

Even a pharaoh with a fleet of his own would surely prefer to have the far more experienced Cretan navy by his side than against him allied with the Hyksos! The Avaris paintings indicate an involvement of Egypt in international relations and cultural exchanges with the eastern Mediterranean either through exchange of gifts or even marriage. They additionally point to Minoan authority as being involved in Egyptian affairs possibly because Crete had a strong naval force to offer the pharaoh, and also to Avaris as a place where these cultural exchanges took place, meaning the city was incredibly important to Egypt.

The marriage of a Minoan princess to an Egyptian pharaoh may be one possible scenario. Bietak has suggested that the Avaris frescoes were painted by Minoan artists belonging to the entourage of a Knossian princess married to the pharaoh, whom he first identified as a Hyksos ruler, then as Ahmose, and much later as Thutmose III. Indeed, who was the Cretan girl’s groom? The Thera eruption around 1600 BCE happened in the middle of the Hyksos period (1650–1550). Thus, most probably a royal wedding in the final years of the Hyksos in Egypt must be ruled out. There follows Ahmose with his New Kingdom, when the Egyptians considered the Aegean to be part of their “empire”. The term must not be understood literally, for in the land of the Nile they misinterpreted even the gifts given to the pharaohs: “The Egyptians, with their characteristic egocentric sense of superiority, would have presented such gifts as tribute” (A. R. Schulman). At any rate, “Ahmose fits particularly well into the picture of Minoan connections”. Thutmose could well be the groom, as well. Besides, we know that he had three foreign wives: Menwi, Merti, and Menhet. However, there was a problem: one more dynastic change that took place during his reign, in the middle of the 15th century BCE, not in Egypt but in Crete, when the Minoans were put under the yoke of their own “Hyksos” (foreign rulers), the Mycenaeans. Therefore, if there was a wedding, it should have happened in the beginning of Thutmose’s reign, when the real pharaoh was his stepmother, Hatshepsut.

Theran rosettes

Whatever the motives, these unique wall paintings are of Minoan style, technique, and content. There is a long frieze of bull-leaping and grappling against a maze pattern. Marinatos has made the case that the rosette motif, a prominent feature of the Taureador paintings, reproduces the Knossian rosettes and that it is a distinct Minoan symbol. The frescoes also depict griffins, hunting scenes, felines chasing ungulates, several life-sized figures, and a white female wearing a skirt. Especially important are the emblems of the Minoan palace such as the half rosette frieze and the presence of big griffins which are the same size as the ones in the throne room at Knossos. The technique of the paintings is typically Aegean, while the style is very high quality and compares with some of the best paintings from Crete. According to Bietak, the use of specific Minoan royal motifs in a palace of Avaris indicates “an encounter on the highest level must have taken place between the courts of Knossos and Egypt,” while the large representation of the female in the skirt might suggest a political marriage between the pharaoh and a Minoan princess.

“Dynastic intermarriage was a favoured diplomatic tactic in the Bronze Age Near East,” the Niemeiers point out. The entourage of a foreign princess, some scholars estimate, “would comprise several hundred people, who until the end of their lives remained in the harem of the pharaoh, and that one can well imagine that at Avaris the rooms of the foreign princess and her entourage were decorated according to her desires. [However], at Alalakh and Tel Kabri, the frescoes probably had been attached to the walls of major ceremonial (and possible ritual) halls of the palace, not of the private rooms of queens or princesses.”

Wild duck on Thera

The technique of using lime plaster in two layers with a highly polished surface, fresco in combination with stucco, all are techniques that are not Egyptian but are first seen in Minoan paintings. Also, the colours used by the artists are clearly Minoan. Using blue instead of grey e.g. is Minoan, with that colour convention being seen in Egypt later, and due to Aegean influences. Besides, there are no Egyptian hieroglyphs or emblems among any of the fragments discovered. The composition of the paintings and motifs also fit in perfectly with those of the Aegean world. Thus the overwhelming evidence seems to point in the direction of Minoan artists having been at work in Avaris.

“The differences between the styles of Egyptian and Minoan arts have been analyzed by Henriette Antonia Groenewegen-Frankfort and, most recently, by Bietak,” the Niemeiers remark. “According to Groenwegen-Frankfort, Minoan art differs from Egyptian (and ancient Near Eastern) art in its ‘absolute mobility in organic forms’. Bietak aptly explains this with the different cultural patterns of both civilizations. The Minoan society was not – as the Egyptian one – dominated by writing, listing, and absolute order, and therefore Minoan art was not subjected to hieroglyphic clichés and a rigid canonical order. As to a comparison of Canaanite and Minoan arts, we unfortunately do not have many objects of art from the middle Bronze Age Levant. But those which are extant show a style distinctly different from the Minoan one. For instance, the bird representations on bone inlays from Megiddo and Lachish seem motionless in comparison to the crane on an ivory plaque from Palaikastro. Canaanite female and male metal figurines appear stiff in comparison to the Minoan female and male metal figurines displaying strong inner tension and dynamics.”

“Minoan art differs from Egyptian (and ancient Near Eastern) art in its ‘absolute mobility in organic forms’.” (H.A. Groenewegen-Frankfort)
“The Minoan society was not – as the Egyptian one – dominated by writing, listing, and absolute order, and therefore Minoan art was not subjected to hieroglyphic clichés and a rigid canonical order.” (M. Bietak)

The Fertile Crescent (that also includes the Nile valley and delta): the cradle of civilization in the time of the Bronze Age collapse
(arrows pinpoint all the places mentioned in this Chronicle)

As it turned out the wall paintings in Avaris, Alalakh, Kabri, possibly Qatna (17th-16th centuries BCE), were not the older ones.

“Earlier are the painted stone imitations in Zimri-Lim’s palace at Mari [18th century BCE]. The excavator of Mari, André Parrot, compared the stone imitations to those at Knossos. He also asked for possible connections between the Mari and the Knossos murals, and, pointing to the evidence for their connections provided by the Minoan precious objects mentioned in the Mari archives, he apparently tended to see some Cretan influence in the murals there.”

Located in Mesopotamia, far from the sea, Mari (modern Tell Hariri) was a Sumerian and Amorite city on the Euphrates. It flourished from 2900 until 1759 BCE, when it was sacked by Hammurabi, despite the gifts the king Zimri-Lim had given him. More important was Mari’s strategic position as a relay point between lower Mesopotamia and northern Syria. The city came to control the trade lanes between different regions such as Iran, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. The royal palace contained over 300 rooms and was possibly the largest of its time. More than 25,000 tablets were recovered there “bringing about a complete revision of the historical dating of the ancient Near East and providing more than 500 new place names, enough to redraw the geographical map of the ancient world,” as Parrot noted. Qatna (modern Tell el-Mishrife), 18 km northeast of Homs, was also one of the largest Bronze Age towns in Syria. In the 2nd Millennium trade routes developed connecting Mesopotamia with Cyprus, Crete and Egypt. Qatna is mentioned in the tin trade, which went from Mari via Qatna to the Mediterranean; Cypriote copper was transported in the other direction; their alloy, bronze, was most valuable especially during the Bronze Age.

Theran boy-boxers

As for the ethnic composition of the “Minoan” workshops, there are various possibilities: the frescoes were painted a) by travelling Aegean artisans; b) under the supervision of Aegean artists with the assistance of Levantine painters trained by them; c) by Levantine pupils of Aegean masters. The idea of mixed workshops seems more appealing, probable and realistic. Decorating huge palaces was a great undertaking. However, it would seem unthinkable to imagine Cretan ships full of artists travelling around the Mediterranean for this task. The artistic teams should have been rather small necessarily working with local apprentices.

“It is difficult to decide in each case which of these solutions is the correct one,” according to the Niemeiers. “We would agree with Philip P. Betancourt that only a very small percentage of the fresco paintings is known and that ‘we are touching the tip of the iceberg of a whole series of interrelated workshops, working in Knossos, the Aegean islands, on the coast of Western Asia and in Egypt, perhaps travelling back and forth, perhaps occasionally exchanging personnel or going back to Knossos to learn the most recent things’… The Alalakh, Tel Kabri, and Avaris frescoes are to be seen ‘in terms of the forging of an élite koiné [common ‘idiom’] – artistic, iconographical, ideological, technological – in the circumstances of the intense maritime interaction between the coastal Areas of the Eastern Mediterranean’,” as S. Sherratt proposed. Marinatos has also argued that these paintings are evidence of a koiné, a visual language of common symbols, which testifies to interactions among the rulers of neighbouring powers. “The Minoan artists involved in the painting of all these frescoes”, the Niemeiers agree, “apparently formed an important element in the growth of the so-called ‘International Style’ of the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean.”

And not only of the eastern part of mare nostrum, I would add: according to some fresco experts, similar Minoan-style wall paintings have also been found in Morocco…

There was “a whole series of interrelated workshops, working in Knossos, the Aegean islands, on the coast of Western Asia and in Egypt, perhaps travelling back and forth, perhaps occasionally exchanging personnel or going back to Knossos to learn the most recent things.” (P.P. Betancourt)
The frescoes are to be seen “in terms of the forging of an élite koiné – artistic, iconographical, ideological, technological – in the circumstances of the intense maritime interaction between the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean.” (S. Sherratt)

Cretans in Egypt, bringing gifts of metal, jewelry etc, facsimile of a painting in Thebes, 18th dynasty,
early 15th century BCE

Whatever happened to the Avaris wall paintings? One group of them had fallen off the wall of a doorway, and the other group of fragments was found in dumps deposited by the north-east palace. The frescoes seem to have been removed during the later Thutmosid period – when there was no Minoan Crete anymore.

“Minoan fresco painting apparently was a rather short-lived phenomenon in the Levant and Egypt – in Egyptian terms, covering the Hyksos period and the very beginning of the early 18th Dynasty,” the Niemeiers sum up. “Later, we find again paintings of nature scenes which appear to breathe a Minoan spirit. They were, however, executed in secco technique and certainly were not painted by Aegean artists. Minoan wall painting was a thing of the past at that time.”

Without Minoan Crete there was no room for Minoan art. The Minoan workshops were still busy, of course; but the artistic masters worked for the new political masters, the Mycenaeans; there were no Greek artists at that time to compete with them. However, their new works of art are not typified as “Minoan” anymore; they are called “Mycenaean”, sometimes accompanied with a footnote that they were made by Cretan artistic workshops. Would anyone ever think to describe as “Cretan” the masterpieces of another great Cretan master who lived more than three millennia later, namely Doménicos Theotocópoulos, the famous El Greco?

Mycenaean women procession fresco

Here we are again at our starting point, having completed the circle that began with Periplus and Minoan thalassocracy and ended with Emporia and Minoan painting. Now we can start anew, going back even before our starting point – before man learned how to work metals, when voyages were made in search of an equally valuable material: the obsidian. Let us go back to the Neolithic era! Let’s try at least…

● Asia Minor, Pontus Euxinus and Magna Graecia ● Tartessos: the Apple of Discord ● The Persian Expansion’s Impact on the Occident ● Differences Between Phoenicia and Carthage, and their Achilles’ Heel ● The Battles of Alalia and Salamis ● The Rise of Macedon and Rome

THE WESTWARD EXPANSION of the Hellenes ought to be gradual and cautious. Crossing the Aegean was no problem for it was a Greek sea. After Troy had been destroyed, there was no-one to block the entrance to the Black Sea – only nature. That is why it was euphemistically named Pontus Euxinus, ‘hospitable sea’, to placate Poseidon. The Hellenes became masters of that sea and spread all over. But they knew very well that in the Mediterranean there was fierce antagonism. The CanaanitePhoenicians, who avoided trespassing into the Aegean and the Black Seas,(a) were found in all other places, having built up their trade web at a time when they were sailing almost alone. Their motive was profit out of exchange. Part of the gains, however, was spent as tribute to the succession of empires ruling Phoenicia.

(a) Of course, I do not mean to say that the Canaanites did not sail in the Aegean; Hellenic ships voyaged to Canaan, as well. The Graeco-Phoenician relations were age-old and their exchanges done on an equal basis. What I mean to say is that the Aegean could never become Tartessos; that a Canaanite merchant voyaging to Hellas was just a trader; the same person in Iberia acted like a monopolist…

Phoenician ship, marble mosaic

The Greeks had more to motivate them: famine, wars and civil disorders drove many to other lands; migrations took place in order to avoid those ills. Population growth and cramped spaces at home, combined with a desire to expand their sphere of economical influence, were what motivated them and that is why they appeared in Italy ca 800 BCΕ. It was the next place to colonize and Hellenize after Asia Minor and the Black Sea. Within the next 150 years, several cities founded colonies along the coast of southern Italy and most of Sicily, controlling trade routes and dominating the Strait of Messina. This zone came to be known as Magna Graecia. The Phoenicians generally avoided military confrontations with the Greeks, unless a strategic land was at stake, e.g. Sicily. To the north, the Hellenes faced another adversary, the Etruscans, who had risen to the status of a regional power in the same period. The mining and commerce of metals led to their enrichment and expansion in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean. The Greek presence was in fact disturbing their interests, especially since the Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Corsica, Gaul, and Iberia. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with the CarthaginianPunics,(b) because their interests too collided with those of the Hellenes.

(b) Especially in this Chronicle, a clear differentiation is necessary between the Canaanite Phoenicians and the Carthaginian Punics so as to avoid confusion: the term Canaanite refers to Phoenicia, Canaan; the term Punic to Carthage; while the term Phoenician covers both, the entire family.

The situation began to change dramatically sometime after 640 BCΕ, when the first Greek trader sailed to Tartessos. Probably it was the first arrival of a ‘historical’ Hellene at Iberia, after the voyages of the Mycenaeans and those of legendary heroes such as Heracles to the peninsula. This sailor was Colaeus (Κωλαῖος), a Samiansilver explorer and trader who arrived at Tartessos ca 640 BCΕ, according to Herodotus. In an era when merchants were anonymous, the historian thought Colaeus was important enough to note. Since no other Greek trader had previously sailed to Tartessos, Colaeus was able to obtain a cargo of metal (150 kg of silver) and return it safely to his island, realizing one of the greatest trade profits at the time. The Phocaeans of Massalia followed Colaeus’ route many years later and dropped anchor at Tartessos. Herodotus says that the Phocaeans were the first Hellenes to make long sea-voyages, having discovered the coasts of the Adriatic, Tyrrhenia, Iberia, and Tartessos. He also notes that Arganthonios, the famous Tartessian king, welcomed the Greeks and urged them in vain to settle there. But why “in vain”? They finally settled there. And why was the king so eager to have them there? The answer to this question would be given by the historical developments.

Phocaean warrior (500-480 BCE)

Hearing that the Persians were becoming a dominant power in the area of their metropolis, Phocaea, he gave them 1500 kg of silver to build a defensive wall about their city. Despite this wall, however, Phocaea was conquered in 546 BCΕ. Rather than submit to Persian rule, most Phocaeans abandoned their city. Some of them fled to Chios, others to their colonies in Corsica and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, with some eventually returning to Phocaea. Many became the founders of Elea ca 540 BCΕ. It is the period when Persia conquered the Hellenic cities on the coast of Asia Minor. Ironically, the Greeks were not alone in this misfortune; the Canaanites suffered even more: Tyre was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 572 BCΕ; then in 539, the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquered Canaan; Phoenicia declined further and was obliged to pass the baton to Carthage; many Canaanites also moved to the new rising metropolis and other colonies. The consolidation of the great Empire of the Achaemenids would re-arrange the map of the entire Mediterranean, not only in the Orient but also in the Occident. The 6th century proved to be a great turning point…

The consolidation of the great Empire of the Achaemenids would re-arrange the map of the entire Mediterranean, not only in the Orient but also in the Occident. The 6th century proved to be a great turning point…

Prow of a ship on a Punic coin (replica)

If Plutarch‘s Lives were about peoples, one could very well parallel the Minoans to the Canaanites and the Mycenaeans to the Punics; a basic difference was that, unlike the Canaanites who lacked such potential, the Punics opted to expand by conquest. Generally speaking, there are two main differences between an ancient colony and one of our times: First of all, the former was a city founded by a metropolis, not a land conquered by another country; and, most important, the ancient colony was usually sovereign from its inception. Particularly in the Phoenician world, the colonies, although self-governing, had to pay tribute to the metropolis. Carthage e.g. was a dependency of Tyre. This was out of necessity: the Phoenicians lacked the population to establish large self-sustaining cities abroad and most of their colonial towns had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, with Carthage being one of the few exceptions. The settlements were made on the two paths to Iberia’s mineral wealth: a) along the North African coast, and b) on Sicily, Sardinia and the Balearics.(c) They paid tribute to either Tyre or Sidon, but neither had actual control on them. This rule changed ca 650 BCΕ when Carthage gained independence from Tyre, establishing hegemony over other Phoenician colonies in the West. While some of them willingly submitted, paying tribute and giving up their foreign policy, others in Iberia and Sardinia resisted. Carthage sent troops there and appointed magistrates, retaining direct control over them. It was a policy rigidly enforced during the Punic Wars, when Carthage had become the undisputed ruler of all Phoenicians, and resulted in a number of Iberian towns siding with the Romans. If that was the treatment reserved for their own people, their kindred, one can easily imagine what would happen to all the rest.

(c) What was the purpose of the Phoenician colonies on the ‘second path to Iberia’s mineral wealth’? The first one was the ‘natural’ seaway linking Phoenicia with Iberia sailing by the North African coast. The second path was the ‘natural’ seaway linking Greece with Iberia voyaging from island to island. Therefore, this was not a trade route for the Phoenicians. Its exclusive purpose was to block the Hellenes sailing west: it was of strategic importance.

According to Greek historians, Elissa, renamed as Dido in Virgil‘s Aeneid, was the founder of Carthage. The city was built on a promontory – a location that made it master of maritime trade in the Mediterranean. All ships crossing the sea had to sail between Tunisia and Sicily, affording the city great power and influence. Founded in 814 BCΕ, it was one of the largest cities in Hellenistic times (by some estimates, only Alexandria was larger). The Punics, unlike other Phoenicians, had a landowning aristocracy who established a rule of the hinterland in Northern Africa and trans-Saharan trade routes. In addition, unlike the Romans, and despite the lack of manpower, Punic citizenship was exclusive, and the goal of the state was more focused on protecting commerce. The citizens were exempt from taxation and were primarily involved in this domain as traders or workers. As a result, Carthage could not afford to wage long wars, as commercial activities slowed down.(d) The war machine, however, was very efficient. Its navy was one of the largest in the Mediterranean, using serial production to maintain high numbers at low cost, while the army included the now extinct North African elephants trained for war. The city turned west and became the ‘middleman’ between mineral resource-rich Iberia and the East. The eastward expansion along the African coast (through Libya) was blocked by the Greek colony of Cyrene, established in 630 BCΕ. The wars against the Hellenes were due to the vulnerability of the Punic economy to Greek competition, as the products ‘Made in Carthage’ were inferior to Hellenic goods. The Greek colonists posed a twofold threat: a) undercutting the Phoenicians by offering better products; and b) taking over the distribution network.

Dido and the walled city of Carthage, medal, ca 1550 CE

(d) This contradiction is the superpowers’ Achilles’ heel. Carthage, as a commercial empire, would prefer peace, but as a commercial empire, had to conduct wars continuously – and this is what happened in fact, first against the Hellenes and then against the Romans. Moreover, the Punic citizens remained a small, privileged but vulnerable minority until the end because of their refusal to grant privileges to their neighbours in order to integrate them into their society; this in addition obliged them to rely more and more on mercenaries during the wars. This would prove fatal for Carthage

The wars against the Hellenes were due to the vulnerability of the Punic economy to Greek competition, as the products ‘Made in Carthage’ were inferior to Hellenic goods. The Greek colonists posed a twofold threat:
a) undercutting the Phoenicians by offering better products; and
b) taking over the distribution network.

Punic gold coin with a horse

The empire depended heavily on its trade with Tartessos and Iberia in general, from which it obtained vast quantities of silver, lead, copper and, even more importantly, tin ore, which was essential for the manufacture of bronze. Carthage’s trade relations with the Iberians and the naval might that enforced its monopoly on this trade and with tin-rich Britain allowed it to be the sole significant broker of tin and maker of bronze. This monopoly, one of the major sources of power and prosperity for Carthage, should be maintained at any cost; a Punic sea merchant would rather crash his ship upon the rocky shores of Britain than reveal to any antagonist how it could be safely approached. In addition to being the sole significant distributor of tin, its central location in the Mediterranean and control of the waters between Sicily and Tunisia allowed it to check the eastern nations’ supply of tin, as well. Carthage was also the largest producer of silver, mined in Iberia and North Africa, and, after the tin monopoly, this was one of its most profitable trades. The purple dye was also one of the most highly valued commodities, being worth 15-20 times its weight in gold. Ancient sources concur that Carthage via its trade had become perhaps the wealthiest city in the world. However, without the monopoly on trade with Tartessos and Iberia at large, the Punic Empire was inconceivable. The leaders of Carthage should have been conscious of that when they replaced the Canaanites as overlords of Iberia ca 575 BCΕ. The voyage of the Massaliote Phocaeans to Tartessos might have taken place sometime afterwards. The friendship between king Arganthonios and the Greeks must have greatly annoyed Carthage that felt its monopoly was at stake. It was urgent to take some action against the ‘intruders’, in order to establish itself as the greatest economic and military power in the western Mediterranean.

Without the monopoly on trade with Tartessos and Iberia at large,
the Punic Empire was inconceivable.

This ‘action’ took place in the Tyrrhenian Sea ca 537 BCΕ. It was the historic Battle of Alalia. When the metropolis Phocaea fell to Persia, most citizens chose to move to Alalia (Aléria since Roman times), their colony in Corsica. This resulted to a decline of Punic and Etruscan trade there and led Carthage and Etruria to become allies. Their joint fleet of 120 ships, disguised as a pirate force, was defeated by just 60 Phocaean ships carrying migrants to the colony. It would have been a great victory in tactics for the Hellenic side, which destroyed an enemy force twice as large; but the Greeks lost almost two-thirds of their own fleet. Herodotus commented that it was a Cadmean victory – what would soon be also described as a Pyrrhic victory.(e) Realizing that they could not withstand another attack, the Hellenes evacuated Corsica, and sought refuge in Rhegion. According to a legend, Greek prisoners were stoned to death by the Etruscans, while the (more practical) Punics sold them into slavery. Etruria got hold of Corsica, and Carthage kept Sardinia. The Punics would fight two more major naval battles with Massalia, losing both, but still managing to safeguard Iberia and close the Pillars of Heracles, the Straits of Gibraltar, to Hellenic shipping, thus containing the Greek expansion in Iberia by 480 BCΕ; the Massaliotes, nevertheless, made no gains and just kept control of their Iberian colonies. It seemed as if the status quo remained in place. But in reality, in southern Iberia a great tragedy had just unfolded with the collapse of the Tartessian civilization.

King Pyrrhus of Epirus

(e) Cadmean is a victory involving one’s own ruin; from Cadmus, the legendary founder of Thebes, who required water from a spring guarded by a water-dragon and all his companions perished. Herodotus could not know the subsequent similar phrase Pyrrhic victory, i.e. one achieved at such a devastating cost that it is a prelude to defeat. It is named after Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans twice in 280-279 BCΕ during the Pyrrhic War. The Romans suffered even greater casualties but had a much larger supply of men. Pyrrhus is reported as saying: “Another such victory and I come back to Epirus alone”.

Some authors consider that this victory/defeat of the Phocaeans in Alalia and the lack of Greek traders in Tartessos led to the collapse… Here we go again! During all those centuries of development, these authors saw only Phoenicians trading there. But, all of a sudden, the Hellenic commerce became so vital for the Tartessians’ survival that they died out when the Punics cut the “oxygen” off! Some other scholars offer the alternative of an “armed conflict”, but in general terms, for they avoid being precise as to who was fighting whom. There are also versions of the Tartessian tragedy that specify both the perpetrators and time: “The Punics brought about the collapse by 530 BC”. Carthage must have put Tartessos in ‘quarantine’ sometime after the death of Arganthonios in 550 BCΕ. This is the reason why ten years later, with the Punics and Etruscans allied against the Greeks, the Tartessians did not remain ‘prudently neutral’: they stood by the Hellenes – and paid dearly for that. The situation did not allow ‘luxuries’ such as neutralities.

Gadir > Gadeira > Gades > Cádiz: a map of a much later period where the three old islets (Erytheia, Kotinoussa, Antipolis)
have become one.

Emboldened by the outcome of the Battle of Alalia, the Punics unleashed such a ‘reign of terror’ that even their own kindred in Gadir turned against them. The Punics besieged promptly the fraternal Canaanite city and captured it. The Gaditans suffered so much and for so long that in 206 BCΕ, during the second Punic War, they rebelled against Carthage and, when their city fell to the Romans, they welcomed the victors. Of course, the new overlords were no better: in just one year the Romans’ presence was shaken by a mutiny and an Iberian uprising against them… There was at least one aspect where the Canaanites proved to be greater than the Punics: Some time after the latter had taken over Gadir, the Persian king Cambyses became master of Egypt and Cyrene in 525 BCΕ. Carthage was then spared a trial of arms against the Persian Empire, since the Canaanites refused to lend ships to the Persians for an African expedition against their own kindred. It seems that at least for the Canaanites, unlike the Punics, blood ties were still important. However, even without losing a war, the Punic Empire may have paid tribute irregularly to the Great King of Kings.

Carthage was spared a trial of arms against the Persian Empire,
since the Canaanites refused to lend ships to the Persians
for an African expedition against their own kindred.

Carthage proceeded to destroy Tartessos and drive the Greeks away from southern Iberia, defending its trade monopoly in the western Mediterranean vigilantly, with attacks on the merchant ships of its rivals. Historical reports indicate that Tartessos had little military defense as its success was always based on trade and friendly relations with its neighbours. This is hard to believe, however, for the kingdom was so wealthy that many Iberian tribes would covet this land. There should have been defensive walls and deterrent land and sea forces, that is, army and navy. As for the date of the catastrophe, in several historical texts we can find one that sets the date as 533 BCΕ that is consistent with what was cited above (“by 530 BC”), and another one sometime later, around 500 BCΕ. We cannot be sure if the two dates refer to the same event or if there was an “armed conflict” between the Tartessians and the Punics that lasted about thirty years. “It is reported”, we can read in one of those texts, “that around 500 BC Tartessos was attacked by the Carthaginians, who destroyed the capital and left it without protection from the sea”. It makes sense if we remember those accounts that Tartessos had a sophisticated system to regulate the river flow, and also its supposed similarity to Atlantis.

Auletris (aulos playing woman), Iberian high-relief of the Osuna sculptures (Seville province, end of 3rd or beginning of 2nd century BCE)

The abrupt disappearance, and the fact that its capital has never been found, led to lots of speculation: how could such an important civilization disappear without leaving traces? If the capital eludes us, there are other Tartessian cities that can ‘speak’ the truth. Balsa and Tavira in the Algarve were violently destroyed in the end of the 6th century, probably together with the capital and other sites, when the Punics proceeded to impose their iron will. It is claimed that Mainake, the Hellenic colony founded near Málaga under the aegis of Tartessos, was destroyed at the same time, too. We also know that during that century many Canaanite colonies were deserted. We cannot be sure if this was connected with Phoenicia’s decline, or Carthage’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ operations, or both. It is a pity that, despite the numerous excavations, it has not been possible to locate with certainty either Mainake or Akra Leuké in Alicante, or even Tartessos, of course. Whatever the result of these efforts, the ancient texts that mention these cities cannot be ignored; otherwise, the story of Tartessos and its demise should be treated as fiction, as well…

“Tartessos was attacked by the Carthaginians, who destroyed the capital and left it without protection from the sea”. (“Tartesso delenda est”)

King Arganthonios of Tartessos

There is a tendency to present the Canaanites as “peaceful colonists”, while the Punics as “warlike colonialists”. We have seen the Phoenicians acting in a manner anything but peaceful whenever they could “manage” the adversary.(f) In a text about the History of old Onuba (Huelva), apart from numerous open questions and hypotheses,(g) we have certain interesting data presented. It seems that Tartessos began gradually sinking into crisis and decline in the 8th century BCΕ at a time when there was a co-existence of Phoenician and Hellenic colonies like Gadir and Portus Menesthei, which is identified as a Phocaean site.(h) The author is impressed by the closeness of the Greek site to the Tartessian capital and notes that the archaeologists in Huelva have observed a decrease in Phoenician pottery, in parallel with an increase in Hellenic ceramics of far better quality. The worsening of the situation in the next century is manifested by the almost total disappearance of open settlements together with the walling of cities. In the 6th century we notice the outbreak of another crisis evidenced by the decrease of mineral exports. Its tragic climax is attested with the destruction of Tartessos by the Punics because it sided with the Hellenes. It is worth noting that the conquerors had no intention to eliminate just the identity features of the conquered, indicating how merciless this confrontation had been, equal to what we now describe as ‘genocide’. The descendant culture of the Turdetani in southern Andalusia marks a return to the socio-economic features of the late Atlantic Bronze Age within the Iron Age conditions of the 5th century BCΕ, which is translated as a regression of at least three centuries.

The map shows only one Greek colony in Iberia: Emporion. The other settlements are all local or Phoenician. So, by what magic wand did the blue of the Hellenic cultural influence spread and how could it penetrate the Phoenician sphere of influence?

(f) Certainly, this mentality has not been a Phoenician peculiarity but a human characteristic: virtually everyone acts likewise. The Hellenes e.g. very often acted as the “bullies” of antiquity (although this feature sometimes saved them, as it happened during the Persian Wars). As regards the Canaanites, let’s go back to Chronicle 5 on the Sea Peoples. We have seen that one of them, “the Tjeker, moving to Canaan, captured the city-state of Dor and turned it into a large, well-fortified capital of their kingdom. Dor was violently destroyed in the mid-11th century BCΕ by the expanding Phoenicians, who were checked by the Philistines, and then by the Hebrews.” And, of course, except these minor local powers that blocked Phoenician expansion, there were also superpowers, such as the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. Conclusion: There was absolutely no room for Phoenician expansion in the Levant.

(g) The author seems to be obsessed with the Greeks, presenting them as a destabilizing factor, allegedly terrorizing the countryside and promoting their goods by force! He admits, however, that these goods were better in quality (in such cases, the ones who resort to violence are the monopolists with less attractive products in order to avoid free competition). He also makes clear that all his hypotheses are not based on archaeological finds.

(h) Amid all this speculation and conjecture, he claims that the 8th century BC was “a time when Phoenician and Greek colonies, such as Gadir and Portus Menesthei, coexisted”. When did this actually happen? Was it in the 8th or in the 6th century? In the previous Chronicle both versions were presented:

…“the Greek cities on the Mediterranean coast of Iberia probably appeared on the map after the foundation of Massalia ca 600 BCΕ”. However, “the Greeks of the Homeric era – or their products at least – arrived at Iberian ports in the 8th century BCΕ. Those that transported the Hellenic ware and other goods might very well have been the Phoenicians… What the Phoenician ships could not transport and, therefore, made the Greek presence absolutely necessary in Iberia, was Hellenic culture, art, ideas, architectural models, burial habits, and so on.”

After imposing ‘Pax Punica’ in southern Iberia, Carthage turned its attention to another land of strategic importance mostly controlled by the Hellenes: Sicily. The Punics planned the largest overseas expedition thus far: after three years of preparations, they sailed for Sicily. It was the outbreak of the first Sicilian War,(i) which coincided with Xerxes’ expedition against Greece in 480 BCΕ, prompting speculation about a possible alliance between Carthage and Persia. But even without an official pact, Carthage should have timed its expedition with that of the Achaemenids to exclude the possibility of any aid sent from Hellas to Sicily. The outcome of both expeditions was disastrous for the invaders. For the Phoenicians it was a double defeat: not only of the Punics in Sicily, but also of the Canaanites fighting in the naval Battle of Salamis under Persian orders. The repercussions brought sweeping changes in Carthage: an oligarchic Republic was then established, and also an isolationist policy was followed for the next 70 years when Carthage took no action against the Greeks, nor even aided any of their rivals. Economically, sea-borne trade with the East was cut off by the Greeks in Hellas, while the cities of Magna Graecia boycotted Punic merchants. This led to the development of trade with the West and of caravan-borne trade with the East. Focus was shifted on the exploration and expansion in Africa and Europe. This isolationism explains why the two great maritime empires in the 5th century BCΕ, Carthage and Athens, were not engaged in war. In this period Athens began massive exports of pottery to Iberia, especially in the southeast. But again, as in the previous Canaanite era of Iberia, the archaeologists do not know yet what ships transported the ware, Punic or Athenian.

(i) Essentially, the three Sicilian Wars or, more properly, the Greek-Punic Wars, were a lamentable continuation of the relentless ‘tradition’ of civil war between Hellenic cities, with Carthage being always involved, changing sides, and finally winning the lion’s share. These wars, the longest lasting conflicts of classical antiquity (600-265 BCΕ), would culminate in the Punic Wars and end with Carthage being razed to the ground by the Romans.

While Carthage was engaged in another Sicilian War, the rise of Macedon under Philip II and Alexander the Great saw the defeat of the city-states in Greece and the fall of the Achaemenid Empire. All the Phoenician cities in Canaan had submitted except Tyre that was besieged and sacked in 332 BCΕ. The rise of Hellenistic Greece gradually ousted the last remnants of Phoenicia’s former dominance over the trade routes of the eastern Mediterranean, and its culture disappeared entirely in the motherland. The Punics were the last of the Phoenicians. Alexander was raising a fleet in Cilicia for the invasion of Carthage, Italy and Iberia when he died in 323 BCΕ, sparing Carthage a perilous ordeal. Battles of the Diadochi and the three-way struggle among Antigonid Macedon, Ptolemaic Egypt and SeleucidSyria were again good news for Carthage avoiding conflicts with the successors. Trade relations were reinstated with Egypt, together with sea-borne access to the eastern markets for the first time since 480 BCΕ. It seemed as if Carthage had also inherited the Phoenicians’ good fortune, since two superpowers, the Persian and Macedonian, could not realize their plans to campaign against its domain. The confrontation with Rome, however, would prove to be inevitable. The Punic Wars were a series of three wars that lasted from 264 to 146 BCΕ. The first one was fought for the control of Sicily. Finally, Carthage evacuated it and paid a large war indemnity. The end of the war found Rome with a large navy able to prevent sea-borne invasion of Italy, control sea trade routes, and invade foreign shores. Sardinia and Corsica were also seized, while Carthage had plunged into another war with its mercenaries. Rome finally emerged as the most powerful state in the western Mediterranean.

The rise of Hellenistic Greece ousted the remnants of Phoenicia’s former dominance over trade routes and its culture disappeared in the motherland. The Punics were the last of the Phoenicians. Alexander was raising a fleet
for the invasion of Carthage, Italy and Iberia when he died…

Hannibal’s feat in crossing the Alps with elephants, though many did not survive,
passed into European legend: detail of a fresco by Jacopo Ripanda, ca 1510

Carthage spent the years after the war improving its finances and expanding its empire in Hispania (Iberia), preparing for the next war that is most remembered for Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps with elephants. He resoundingly defeated the Romans in several battles, but was not able to cause a break between Rome and its allies. Far more important, despite his many pleas, he never received sufficient reinforcements, as Carthage opted to send extra forces only to its source of wealth, Iberia. Thus Hannibal was unable to achieve his goal of ultimately conquering Rome and winning the war. This gave self-confidence to the Romans, while they were fighting simultaneously in Italy, Iberia, Sicily, and also against Carthage’s ally, Macedon. Finally, the war was taken to Africa, where Carthage was defeated and its control reduced to only the city itself. The resurgence of hostilities fifty years later was linked with anti-Roman agitations in Iberia and Hellas, and the recovery of Punic wealth and power. Cato the Elder gave the motto for the annihilation of Carthage ending all his speeches, no matter what the topic, by saying: “Carthago delenda est” – “Carthage must be destroyed”. Rome presented a series of unacceptable demands, finally claiming that Carthage be demolished and rebuilt away from the coast, deep into Africa. In 146 BCΕ, after a three-year siege, it was systematically sacked and burned to the ground, with the fields salted to make the land completely infertile and useless for future generations.(j) No Punic war records exist, since the books of Carthage’s library were distributed among the African tribes and none remain on Punic history: Elissa-Dido was finally deprived of her immortal fame…

…“remain there and look on to the end
look at them, those with keys and others with handcuffs
who’ll be demolishing \ as allies
roofs bridges wells
look at them
while they’ll be levelling down the town you’ve built
and sowing it with salt.”

STRANGELY ENOUGH, “a critical turning point in history… an important element mentioned by many sources, and yet given consideration by virtually none, is the simple fact that – in the midst of a cataclysm which destroyed almost every city in the eastern Mediterranean area – the Phoenician cities remained untouched… accorded a special status by the invading peoples”. Such is the conclusion of a specialist on Phoenicia, Sanford Holst, in his analysis “Sea Peoples and the Phoenicians: A Critical Turning Point in History”, adding equally unequivocally: “There was a relationship or partnership of some nature between the Sea Peoples and the Phoenicians”…

However, being ‘pro-Phoenician’, he tries to minimize the importance of the Minoans in his text regarding the “Origin of the Phoenicians, Interactions in the Early Mediterranean Region”. Reversing historical periods, he opts to portray the Minoans as the Phoenicians’ ‘pupils’ and uses the usual ‘beautiful’ phrases as a cover-up:

“Around 2000 BC”, he postulates, “the beautiful Minoan civilization arose on Crete, accompanied by many indications of ‘Eastern influence’. By that time the Phoenicians had long been established as major sea traders on the Mediterranean. That the Minoans received influences from them and others in the form of specific pottery, architectural practices, social practices, legends and language are very much in evidence”…

“A critical turning point in history… an important element mentioned by many sources, and yet given consideration by virtually none, is that – in the midst of a cataclysm which destroyed almost every city in the eastern Mediterranean – Phoenicia remained untouched… accorded a special status by the invading peoples… There was a relationship or partnership of some nature between the Sea Peoples and the Phoenicians.” (Sanford Holst)

The Phoenicians may be the ‘darlings’ of most historians; but none would ever claim that their civilization was older than that of the Minoans. The latter, therefore, were the real masters, and their good pupils, as it turned out, were not the Mycenaeans but the Phoenicians, when the Cretans often voyaged to Canaan for trade. “The Phoenicians began to develop as a seafaring, manufacturing, and trading nation when the Cretans – the first masters of the Mediterranean – were overthrown by the Greeks”, R. A. Guisepi notes in “The Phoenicians”. They probably ventured out in the open sea some time before, in the mid-16th century, trying to profit from the misfortunes of the Cretans.

Young saffron gatherer, detail of a wall painting replica from Acroteri, Thera, 17th century BCE

“The Late Minoan I period as a whole represents the zenith of Minoan civilization”, W. Sheppard Baird writes in his study on “The Bronze Age Eruption of Santorini and Late Minoan IB Destruction Event”. “Their cultural and maritime economic influence throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea would never be exceeded. This was a time of great social and political cohesion and commercial and industrial prosperity. Their only economic rival in the Mediterranean was the Egyptians. The Minoans at this time ruled the seas with the largest navy and commercial fleet ever seen in the Mediterranean. Then it all came crashing down with the incredible eruption of the Theran marine volcano”.(a)“When the Theran volcano exploded in the Aegean”, he notes writing on “The Origin of the Sea Peoples”, “it would have been difficult enough for the surviving Minoans to resurrect the Mediterranean trade routes amid the incredible devastation. The effective Minoan policing of the old trade routes from piracy that was in place before the eruption might have never again been achieved”. And he concludes describing the aftermath of the Sea Peoples’ raids: “By this time all of the great Bronze Age powers that had existed before the volcanic eruption, except the Egyptians, lay shattered, depopulated, and would never recover. In sharp contrast, the Phoenicians survived completely unscathed and invigorated. It was the beginning of the ‘Age of the Phoenicians’ in the Mediterranean. What did they do? They headed straight for the gold, silver, and tin of southern Iberia to establish trading outposts and colonies.”

An island volcano similar to that at Thera

(a) The Minoan eruption was one of the largest volcanic events in recorded history (probably the second biggest after Tambora, Indonesia, in 1815 CE), devastating Thera, nearby islands and parts of Crete. The eruptions, generating tsunamis and preceded by earthquakes, provided the basis for or inspired Plato’s Atlantis story and the Titanomachy in Hesiod’s Theogony. The exact date has been difficult to determine. The initial date of 1500 BCE appeared to be too early as radiocarbon dating analysis indicated that the eruption occurred at least a century before, ca 1627-1600 BCE. A volcanic winter after the eruption provoked the collapse of the Xia dynasty in faraway China, following “yellow fog, a dim sun, frost in July, famine, and the withering of all five cereals”. Heavy rainstorms that ravaged Egypt have been attributed to short-term climatic changes caused by the eruption. W. Sheppard Baird suggests that at least one pyroclastic surge of superheated steam travelled at a high speed over 110 kilometers of sea water to incinerate large areas of Crete spreading destruction and death. The Mycenaean conquest of the island occurred about 150 years after the catastrophe, and many archaeologists speculate that it induced a grave crisis in the Minoan civilization that made things far easier for the Mycenaeans. The internal political conflict hypothesis is also present here. It is a realistic scenario because of the instability created by the catastrophe. This could also be a factor that may have paved the way for the Mycenaeans.

Seal of Tarkummuwa, the king of Mera, surrounded by Hittite hieroglyphs and cuneiform script: this famous bilingual inscription provided the first clues for deciphering Hittite hieroglyphs.

Not “what did they do?” but “how did they make it?” should be the first question to ask – followed by the crucial query: “Who were the Phoenicians’ adversaries?” Sanford Holst explains:

“The Phoenician people had been dominant sea traders in the Mediterranean prior to 1500 BC [that is, they had attempted unsuccessfully to establish themselves as such after the Minoan eruption]. Then the rise of the Mycenaeans caused sea trade to fall into the hands of that new power. This pushed the Phoenicians backward from the west. The growth of Ugarit as a major sea trader located just north of the Phoenicians exerted additional pressure from that direction. Immediately beside that powerful city were the Hittites”.

The Phoenicians’ adversaries, therefore, were the Mycenaeans and the Hittites, including Ugarit. A war between Egypt and Hatti in the early 13th century was inconclusive and the Hittites kept all the lands they had taken. Then the great Pharaoh Ramses II died in 1213 BCE and four years later the Sea Peoples appeared on the scene waging their first unsuccessful raid against Egypt, “the breadbasket which had been supplying the Hittites with wheat via Ugarit”. The hungry Sea Peoples wanted bread and the breadbasket was Egypt, but this did not serve the Phoenicians’ interests. It was urgent for them that the Sea Peoples’ attention be turned elsewhere: to the Aegean and to Anatolia. “What led to the special treatment the Phoenicians seem to have been given by the Sea Peoples? What services could the Sea Peoples possibly have received from these maritime traders?”, Sanford Holst asks. The answer is, of course: bread – if not something more than bread. As for the ‘circuses’, well, the investing Phoenicians hoped that they would be rewarding enough; how profitable, not even the most optimistic Phoenician could ever dream of or imagine…

The hungry Sea Peoples wanted bread and the breadbasket was Egypt, but this did not serve the Phoenicians’ interests. It was urgent for them that the Sea Peoples’ attention be turned elsewhere: to the Aegean and to Anatolia…

The Sea and Land Peoples’ raids

Sanford Holst has the story unfolding:

“With the Hittites threatening their northern border,the Phoenicians would reasonably have supported whichever groups among Sea Peoples wanted to shift attacks away from the failed effort at Egypt and toward a more promising one against the Hittites. Though the Hittites themselves had no excess food to offer, they stood between the Sea Peoples and an achievable goal: the land of Canaan, which was second only to Egypt as a source of wheat. In addition, by going through the Hittite land and Canaan, the Sea Peoples would bring a force numbering hundreds of thousands to confront the wheat-rich Egyptians – rather than the handful of warriors who had failed on the first attempt. But a problem had to be overcome. The Mycenaeans continued to hold the Aegean and attacked the Anatolian people from the seaward side.(b) To deal with this, warriors and ships in the Sea Peoples confederacy poured from Anatolia and the Black Sea into the Aegean, where they ravaged the Mycenaeans. Following this widespread disruption the Mycenaean cities withered and eventually died. When the Aegean had been thus cleared, the people of western Anatolia were able to turn their full attention to the Hittites.(c) In 1182 BC Ugarit fell and the flow of wheat from Egypt was cut off. Approximately two years later the Hittite empire died. Now nothing stood in the way of the Sea Peoples’ exodus.(d) With their wives, children and household possessions in two-wheeled carts, the Sea Peoples – now more properly the Land Peoples – flowed across on their path of destruction and, observing their special relationship with Phoenicia, they by-passed that land. Flowing down through Canaan they destroyed the cities they encountered. Many settled beside the wheat fields and took some of the land for themselves and their families. A very large number of the Land and Sea Peoples continued onward and eventually arrived at the border between Canaan and Egypt. There a great battle was fought and the Sea Peoples were finally stopped.”

The battle of the Egyptians with the Sea Peoples

“The Mycenaeans continued to hold the Aegean and attacked the Anatolian people from the seaward side. To deal with this, warriors and ships in the Sea Peoples confederacy poured from Anatolia and the Black Sea into the Aegean, where they ravaged the Mycenaeans. Following this widespread disruption the Mycenaean cities withered and died. When the Aegean had been thus cleared, the people of western Anatolia were able to turn their full attention to the Hittites.” (Sanford Holst)

(b) This is obviously an allusion to the Trojan War. If so, it explains why the fighters on the Trojan side, as Homer says, sounded like the Tower of Babel builders – that is, speaking various languages and thus needing to have orders translated to them by their commanders.
Let’s compare Eberhard Zangger’s view: “The Sea Peoples may well have been Troy and its confederated allies, and the literary tradition of the Trojan War may well reflect the Greek effort to counter those raids.” (See the next Chronicle 5).

“The Sea Peoples may well have been Troy and its confederated allies, and the literary tradition of the Trojan War may well reflect the Greek effort to counter those raids.” (Eberhard Zangger)

(c) The question raised in the previous Chronicle 3, whether the Hellenes were part of the Sea Peoples, is answered here in the negative form: “No, they were not”. Or were they? We need to elaborate on that in our next Chronicle 5.

The Horses of Saint Mark in Venice: a tiny part of the incalculable booty pillaged by Venetians and Franks; later Napoleon stole the… stolen horses but, after Waterloo, they were returned to their legitimate… thieves!

(d) Using the word “exodus”, Holst clearly sought some “Biblical” connotations. But the historical connotations are more compelling: The similarity or parallelism with the descriptions of the First Crusade (1096-1099 CE) is irresistible indeed; especially of the so-called People’s Crusade, or Peasants’ or Paupers’ Crusade; although, if we like precision, we must describe it as the Unruly Mob’s Crusade. However, if we try to find analogies with the Phoenicians’ conduct, we need to go forward to the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204), branded as the “Cursed Crusade”, that was originally intended to conquer Muslim Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders mercilessly sacked the Christian city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, which was partitioned by the buccaneers that established the Latin Empire. At that time, the role of the Phoenicians was played by the Venetians. One day we may also learn who the Phoenician Enrico Dandolo had been in the Bronze Age collapse…

As we have seen, the Egyptians won the battle but lost the war. Who else did? The Mycenaeans, the Hittites, Ugarit, and also the peoples of Canaan – except the Phoenicians. Even the militaristic Assyrians can be counted among the losers being obliged to withdraw to their land for protection. In short, all the great powers of the day. As for the winners, apart from the Sea Peoples themselves, there is no doubt:

Bronze Age Hittite Carving

“The Phoenicians seem to have gained more than anyone else from the mass migration of the Land and Sea Peoples”, Sanford Holst sums up. “Under the destructive force of the Sea Peoples’ attacks, all of the Phoenicians’ powerful adversaries had been destroyed. The Phoenician cities were untouched by this devastation that happened around them, which left these people in an advantageous position. The historical record shows their active cities quickly began to expand their domain by placing trading posts in Cyprus, the Aegean, Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa, Algeria, Morocco and Spain. Among the cities they created were these in Morocco: Lixis (modern Larache), Sala (Rabat), Mogador (Essaouira) and Tingis (Tangier); in Spain: Gadir (Cádiz), Malaka (Málaga), Ibisa (Ibiza); in Algeria: Icosia (Algiers); in Tunisia: Utica and Carthage; in Sardinia: Karalis (Cagliari); in Sicily: Panormus (Palermo) [one of too many similar cases: cities supposedly founded by the Phoenicians but known by their Greek names as the Canaanite toponyms were forgotten]; in Cyprus: Kition (Larnaca). The Phoenicians gave rise to a powerful and wealthy sea-trading empire which stretched from Morocco to the Levant.” Thus Holst is absolutely right to underline that “this element turns out to be one of the keys which help to unlock the mystery of the Sea Peoples – an event which changed the course of history.”

“Under the destructive force of the Sea Peoples’ attacks, all of the Phoenicians’ powerful adversaries had been destroyed. The Phoenician cities were untouched by this devastation that happened around them, which left these people in an advantageous position.” (Sanford Holst)

Carthage reconstructed

The resulting power vacuum was the golden opportunity for the Phoenicians to take advantage of and emerge as the true heirs of the Minoans, rising as a great maritime power. Their zenith in history (1200–800 BCE) coincides with the dark ages of their antagonists. Enjoying almost complete freedom of movement for a long time, they methodically built their trading empire; when the tide of history brought the great powers back on the scene subjugating Phoenicia from the 9th to the 6th centuries BCE (Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians), they were prepared to shift the hub of the empire from the Near East to the centre of the Mediterranean, from Canaan to Tunisia. After the Persian conquest, many Phoenicians likely migrated to several colonies, mainly Carthage. There they could realize their dream to become a real empire, achieving military supremacy, as well, something that was infeasible in the narrow strip of Phoenicia. As for the Hellenes, they gradually woke up from their dark age and, starting in 800 BCE, rushed to make up for lost time founding their own colonies not only in the Mediterranean, but also in the Black Sea, where the Phoenicians never dared to enter. Studying a map of 550 BCE, the Greek superiority is obvious. The Phoenicians faced a very serious problem: lack of manpower. But they maintained a crucial strategic advantage: the control of the Pillars of Heracles, the Strait of Gibraltar,(e) where Carthage would impose a blockade to secure its trade monopoly with metal-bearing Iberia, the lost city of Tartessos, and in the Atlantic, north and mainly south. Using gold obtained by expansion of the African coastal trade in the mid-4th century BCE, Carthage minted gold staters bearing a pattern in the reverse exergue of the coins, which some have interpreted as a map of the Mediterranean with America (or Atlantis?) shown to the west.

(e)Gibraltar, the European Pillar of Heracles on Spanish soil but controlled by Britain, means the “Rock of Tariq” (Gibr al-Tariq), from the name of Tariq ibn Ziyad who led the vanguard of the Arabs that invaded Iberia in 711. However, long before the Spaniards, the British and the Arabs, the Visigoths and the Vandals (hence the name of Andalusia), the Punics and the Romans, the Phoenicians or the Greeks, long before the Celts, even the Iberians themselves, Gibraltar was used as a settlement of the Neanderthals. The evidence in Gorham’s cave ranging between 125,000 and 25,000 BCE makes the rock their last known holdout. Similarly on the opposite, African Pillar, Ceuta, in Moroccan territory but controlled by Spain, the oldest traces of human presence go back to 250,000 BCE.

This was the background of Phoenicia’s sea trade enterprise that spread across the seas from 1550 to 300 BCE. The Phoenicians were famous as ‘traders in purple’, referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the murex snail, once profusely available in the eastern Mediterranean but exploited to local extinction; used, among other things, for royal clothing. In fact, the word Phoenicia derives from the Hellenic words φοῖνιξ and φοινός, meaning ‘purple’, passing to Latin and other languages as Punic. They called their country ‘Canaan’, which may also mean ‘Land of Purple’. If so, Canaan and Phoenicia would be synonyms. Hecataeus said Phoenicia was formerly called Χνᾶ (‘Khna’). The Greek term did not correspond to a cultural identity that would have been recognized by the Phoenicians themselves. It is uncertain if and to what extent they viewed themselves as a single ethnicity. It was a civilization organized in city-states similar to Hellas. They would come into conflict and one city might be dominated by another, though they could collaborate in leagues or alliances. In terms of language, life style and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart from other Semitic cultures of Canaan as markedly different.

As Canaanites they were remarkable in seamanship. While trade and colonies spread, Phoenicians and Greeks split the Mediterranean into two with the former sailing along and finally dominating the southern shore, while the latter being active along the northern coasts, without excluding mutual intrusions, as the examples of Cyrenaica and Sardinia indicate. The two cultures clashed rarely, mainly in Sicily, due to its strategic position, settling into two spheres of influence. When Carthage took over, things changed dramatically. Apart from purple, the Phoenicians exported textiles, glass, and wine to Egypt, where grapevines would not grow; they obtained Nubian gold, Iberian silver, and British tin. Nevertheless, what was once thought to be direct trade is now believed it was indirect. Timothy Champion thinks it was under the control of the Celts of Britanny.(f) In any case, it seems that the recovery of the Mediterranean economy after the Bronze Age collapse was largely due to the work of Phoenician traders, who re-established long distance trade.

(f) This is a very simple but quite interesting idea: Why should any trading sailor, be it Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, or Carthaginian, take the risk of traveling around Iberia and then up to Britain, when tin from Cornwall or Brittany could be transported overland through Gaul/France? It is the reason why Carthage tried in vain to prevent the founding of the colony of Massalia: even with a blockade in Gibraltar, Cornwall or Brittany tin was accessible in the Mediterranean, and Carthage could not impose an all-out monopoly.

Semiramis, by Eliseo Fattorini, 19th century

Despite the exergues which supposedly depict America, what we see on the other side of the Phoenicians’ ‘coin’ is a certain kind of cultural deficiency. Their art lacks unique characteristics that might distinguish it from its contemporaries. This is due to its being highly influenced by foreign cultures: primarily Egypt, Assyria, and Hellas. Their art was an amalgam of foreign models and perspectives. In addition, although they are credited for the spread of their ‘abjad’, from which all major alphabets originated, they used this script mainly for their trade business.(g) Apart from their inscriptions, they have left almost no other written sources, or they have not survived. We even ignore the name of their “Lord of the Sea”, their “Poseidon” – quite strange for a society of merchants and sailors where such a deity is quite important.(h)

(g) The precursor to the Phoenician ‘alphabet’ was likely of Egyptian origin as Middle Bronze Age abjads from Canaan resemble hieroglyphs, or more specifically an early abjad found in central Egypt. In addition to being preceded by proto-Canaanite, the Phoenician abjad was also preceded by the Ugaritic ‘alphabetic’ script of Mesopotamian origin.

(h) The same could be said about the Minoans, whose deities we also ignore, if we do not take into account that they represent an older civilization, whose script is still undeciphered. Note that there was a god of the sea and the rivers, named Yam (or Yaw) in the Canaanite Pantheon. Was he worshiped by the Phoenicians? It seems that, except Baal (Baal-hamon and his consort Tanit were the patrons of Carthage), the Phoenicians specifically honoured Melqart, patron of Tyre, the founder of most colonies, including Gadir (Cádiz) and Carthage. Gradually, due to mutual influence, Melqart was identified with Heracles. At any rate, none of these gods could substitute Yam-Poseidon. Therefore, the mystery (a people of seamen without a god of the sea) is here to stay…

Melqart on a Phoenician silver tetradrachm

Searching for clues about ‘Phoenician mythology’ e.g. in Wikipedia, we are redirected to a certain Sanchuniathon, a purported author of three lost works in the Phoenician language, supposedly surviving only in partial paraphrase and summary of a translation in Greek by Philo of Byblos, according to the bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius. All we know of Sanchuniathon and his work comes from Eusebius, who cites the only surviving excerpts from his writings, as summarized and quoted from his supposed translator, Philo. The hypothetical date of the alleged writings was before the Trojan War, close to the time of Moses, “when Semiramis was queen of the Assyrians”. Thus Sanchuniathon is placed in the mythic context of an antiquity from which no Hellenic or Phoenician writings have survived. Curiously enough, however, he is made to refer disparagingly to Hesiod, who lived in the 8th century BCE! Some have suggested that Eusebius’ intent was… “pious” [“eusebeia” means “piety” in Greek]: he wanted to discredit polytheism (“the end justifies the means”?); and others that it was a forgery by Philo himself. Of course, we can draw our own conclusions about the real motives behind the forgers, whoever they were. At any rate, anyone in search of clues on Phoenician mythology will certainly be quite astonished if he is redirected to a hoax – “pious” or not…